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Manage Room Types & Room Matching

Room Types, Room Matching, and Staff Types Rules together define where Hand Hygiene opportunities occur and how staff presence is interpreted. These are account-level settings, and changes apply to activity going forward only. Only the Hand Hygiene Administrator role can change these settings.

The work has four pieces, in order:

  1. Review your Room Types (created and renamed in Kio Cloud Company Settings).
  2. Configure Staff Types Rules for each Room Type.
  3. Assign rooms using Room Matching.
  4. Validate the configuration in Test Mode.

For the underlying concepts and how these settings work across Kio apps, see About room types and room matching.

Review your Room Types

Room Types define how each space in your facility is used: patient rooms, procedure rooms, common areas, support rooms, and so on. Review your Room Types during deployment and whenever clinical workflows change.

Creating and renaming Room Types is done in Kio Cloud Company Settings, because Room Types are shared across Kio apps. Inside Hand Hygiene, the Room Types list is where you open a Room Type to manage its rules, update Room Types in bulk, export them, and delete Room Types you no longer use. The list shows each Room Type's No. of Rooms and Profile: Patient & Exam, Supply Storage, Soiled Utility, Staff Station, Transit, or Other.

  1. From Hand Hygiene, go to Settings > Room Types.
  2. To update Room Types in bulk, select the Import Wizard and upload a CSV file.
  3. To save the current Room Types as a CSV file, select the Export Wizard.
  4. To delete a Room Type, select Delete Room Type in its row, then confirm in the Remove Room Type? dialog.

The CSV file can also set Staff Types Rules. Each row names a Room Type in Kio:Room Type and can set its profile in Kio:Room Type Profile. To set a rule, the same row names a Staff Role in Kio:Entity Type, the Status Group in Kio:Status (for example, Utilized or Available), and the Status Value in Kio:Sub Status. Use one row for each Room Type and Staff Role. To remove a Staff Role's rule, enter DELETE in both Kio:Status and Kio:Sub Status. Export first to start from your current Room Types and rules. The import updates Room Types that already exist; a row with a new Room Type name is rejected unless you also have the Administrator role in Company Settings.

You can delete a Room Type only when no rooms are matched to it. If rooms are still matched, Hand Hygiene shows Cannot remove Room Type followed by its name. Move those rooms to another Room Type in Room Matching first. Because Room Types are shared across Kio apps, deleting one removes it from every app.

For Hand Hygiene, align Room Types with the definitions your infection prevention team uses.

Configure Staff Types Rules by Room Type

Staff Types Rules are unique to Hand Hygiene. They define how staff presence is interpreted when a staff member enters a room of a given Room Type, based on the staff member's Staff Role.

You configure these rules inside a Room Type, not as a separate top-level step:

  1. From Hand Hygiene, go to Settings > Room Types.
  2. Open the Room Type you want to configure.
  3. Select the Staff Types Rules tab.
  4. Select Add Rule, choose a Staff Role, and set its Status.

Each rule maps a Staff Role to a Status Group and a Status Value. The Status Group is one of the platform statuses (Utilized or Available); the Status Value beneath it is configured by your account. The examples below use the status values With Patient and On Shift as configured in a typical Hand Hygiene account.

Hand Hygiene uses two kinds of rules:

  • Patient-care Room Types (such as a patient room) use a Staff Role rule with a status in the Utilized group (for example, Utilized > With Patient). This decides which visits count as opportunities. The opportunity starts when the room sensor detects the staff member entering the room and ends when it detects them leaving.
  • Non-patient-care Room Types (such as a corridor, nurses' station, or break room) use a rule with Status Available > On Shift. This describes the staff member's status outside patient care, so visits to these rooms don't count as opportunities.

When a staff member enters a room, the system:

  1. Detects the staff member's location through the Smart Badge and the room sensor (Beam Mini or Portal Beam) in the room.
  2. Looks up the staff member's Staff Role.
  3. Reads the Staff Types Rule for that role in this Room Type, then assigns the Status Group and Status Value.

If the status is in the Utilized group (for example, With Patient), the visit starts a Hand Hygiene opportunity. No manual action by staff is required.

Example: How Staff Types Rules by Room Type work

  • Room Type: Patient Room
  • Staff Role: Nurse
  • Staff Types Rule: Utilized > With Patient

When a Nurse enters a Patient Room, the system records the visit and starts a Hand Hygiene opportunity. If a Physician enters the same room and the Staff Types Rule for Physician is configured the same way, the visit also starts an opportunity. When the same staff member later enters a non-patient-care space configured with Available > On Shift, the opportunity ends. If a Staff Role is mapped to a non-patient-care Status (for example, Environmental Services in a Patient Room), that visit does not start an opportunity.

Assign rooms using Room Matching

Room Matching links each physical room created in Smart Location to its Room Type. Review Room Matching when:

  • Rooms are added, renamed, or reorganized in Smart Location.
  • New units or care areas are brought into Hand Hygiene.
  1. From the Settings menu, select Room Matching.
  2. On the All Rooms tab, choose a floor. To list only rooms that still need a Room Type, select Not matched Rooms only.
  3. In the row for a room, select the Edit icon.
  4. Choose the Room Type, then select Assign.
  5. Repeat for each room on the floor, then review the results on the Matched Rooms tab.

To assign Room Types to many rooms at once, use the Import Wizard on the All Rooms tab. It takes a CSV file with a Room Type for each room. The Export Wizard on the same tab downloads the current matches. Deleting a room match is done in Kio Cloud Company Settings.

Incorrect Room Matching is the most common cause of unexpected compliance data. A room matched to the wrong Room Type is interpreted against the wrong opportunity logic. Review this step carefully.

Validate your configuration

After making changes to Room Types, Staff Types Rules, or Room Matching, validate the configuration before relying on the data:

  1. From the Settings menu, select Test Mode.
  2. Have a test user wear an assigned Smart Badge and walk through rooms covered by the changes.
  3. Confirm that the system detects each room correctly, assigns the expected Status, and creates opportunities for visits that should count.

Address any issues before going live.

Best practices

  • Define Room Types early during deployment, before configuring Staff Types Rules.
  • Align Staff Roles and Room Type Staff Types Rules with hand hygiene clinical responsibilities in each space.
  • Review Room Matching whenever Smart Location changes.
  • Validate behavior using Test Mode whenever you change one of these settings.