When a dispenser records a dispense, Hand Hygiene has to decide whose opportunity that wash belongs to. The Dispenses Distribution Algorithm is the rule it uses to make that decision. Three modes are available, and they differ in how willing the system is to credit a wash to someone whose badge was not the one detected at the dispenser.
The mode your account uses changes your measured compliance without anything changing on the floor. Understanding which mode you are on is the difference between reading your compliance rate correctly and misreading it.
Who this affects
Every compliance figure your account produces is produced under one of these modes, whether or not anyone has ever chosen it. That makes this worth understanding even where the setting itself is not visible to you: the mode is the reason two organizations with identical hand hygiene behavior can report different compliance rates.
To find out which mode your account uses, ask Kontakt.io Support or your Customer Success contact.
The three modes
| Mode | How a dispense is credited |
|---|---|
| Standard | Each dispenser activation is credited to the person whose badge was detected in the signal for that dispense. |
| Generous | Each activation can be credited to anyone in the department who has an applicable opportunity — that is, whose wash window covers the time of the dispense. A badge detected at the dispenser is credited first. |
| Maximum | Activations are distributed so that compliance comes out as high as the data allows. The system compares the total number of washes against the total number of opportunities and finds the highest compliance those totals support. Any staff member on the floor with an applicable opportunity can receive a wash that falls in the right time window. |
The modes are progressive. Standard is the strictest reading of the evidence; Generous relaxes the badge match while keeping the timing rule; Maximum relaxes it furthest.
Important: Maximum increases measured compliance the most, and it does so by attributing washes to people the system did not detect at the dispenser. Expect meaningful misattribution at the individual level. It is the wrong mode for anything that looks at one person's record — coaching conversations, individual trends, or the rewards in Kio Nurse Assistant.
Choosing a mode is a trade
The mode is a judgment about what your compliance number is for.
Standard answers "what can we actually evidence?" It will read lower, and the gap between it and the others is a measure of how much washing your dispenser and badge coverage is failing to link rather than how much washing is failing to happen.
Generous and Maximum answer "how much hand hygiene probably occurred?" They read higher and are more forgiving of coverage gaps, at the cost of individual accuracy.
A department-level improvement programme can live with Generous. An individual coaching programme should not rely on Maximum.
Comparing modes against your own data
Where Hand Hygiene shows the Dispenses Distribution Algorithm card, it comes with a Preview that compares modes against your own recalculated data. You pick a campus, move the slider between modes, and watch the figures change. Nothing in the preview changes your account.
The card is on the Settings > Settings page, between Hand Hygiene Configuration and Dispensers Configuration, and requires the Hand Hygiene Administrator role — the same gate as the rest of Settings. It is not shown on every account.
The preview shows:
- Overall Compliance, with the Full and Any rates beneath it.
- Total Opportunities, including how many were fully compliant.
- Total Activations.
- Compliance Over Time — your baseline overall compliance drawn against the previewed mode, so you can see whether the difference is steady or concentrated in particular periods.
- Rankings, grouped by Departments, Teams, Buildings, or Roles — which shows whether a mode change would reorder your league tables, not just lift the headline.
Two limits are worth knowing before you read the numbers:
- Recalculated data covers a fixed period, which the preview states. The figures cover that period, not whatever range you have selected elsewhere.
- Where the previewed mode and your current configuration cover different periods, the preview says so and does not show a comparison. Two numbers from different periods are not a difference.
Changing the mode
The mode cannot be changed from the app. Where the card is shown, its slider reports the current mode and does not set it.
To change it, request the change through Kontakt.io Support. Processing and applying it takes around one business day.
Where Preview is available, use it first, so the conversation with Support starts from a mode you have already compared against your own data rather than one chosen from a description.
Note: A mode change applies going forward and is reflected in recalculated history. Your compliance figures will move when it takes effect. Tell anyone who reads those figures — infection prevention leads, unit managers, anyone following a target — before the change takes effect, or the shift will read as a change in practice.
What it does not change
The algorithm decides who gets credited for a wash. It does not change:
- What counts as an opportunity. That is minimum visit duration and the two wash windows, in Opportunity configuration.
- Which rooms produce opportunities, or which dispensers are detected.
- The compliance thresholds that color the rankings on the Compliance Analytics page.
If your compliance looks wrong, work out first whether opportunities are being created correctly. Test Mode shows each opportunity and the dispenses around it, and will tell you whether the problem is attribution or detection.