OAKLAND — A computer keyboard developed in Oakland has the potential to save thousands of lives, earning Key Source International, the company that developed it, an award for innovation from the American Hospital Association.

In U.S. hospitals every year, more than 100,000 people die from hospital-acquired infections, the company says. Computer keyboards, essential tools in the era of electronic record-keeping, are a potential major point of cross-contamination.

The federal Centers for Disease Control pretty much confirms that figure, saying that health care-associated infections affect 5 to 10 percent of hospital patients annually, leading to 99,000 deaths and an estimated $20 billion in health care costs.

One Centers for Disease Control’s strategy against this was to work to develop better catheters to prevent bloodstream infections.

But “doctors and nurses spend 50 percent of their day at the computer,” said Key Source CEO Phil Bruno.

In Oakland, just blocks from the Coliseum in humble headquarters on the other side of Interstate 880, Key Source International came up with a computer keyboard that can be easily disinfected.

Along with that hardware comes software that enables the hospitals where the keyboards are used to ensure the keyboards are, in fact, regularly sanitized.

The keyboards have a covering that enables them to be scrubbed, wiped or sprayed clean.

A shutoff switch keeps stray key strokes from entering the hospital data system, and sensors in the keyboard relay data to the computer monitor showing when all the keyboard surfaces have been cleaned.

The software also logs in who did the work, at what station and when. Keyboards that have been neglected can be identified and those work stations notified that the device is due for a cleaning.

Although the keyboards are ready to be assembled and shipped as orders arrive, it is not a simple thing to install new equipment in the middle of a hospital’s computer system, Bruno said.

Any orders for the LinkSmart keyboard system and its San-A-Key software will go through a hospital-approved third-party information technology company, such as Imprivata, which contracts with 1,500 hospitals across the country, Bruno said.

In addition to winning 20 patents for its various products, Key Source has a history of being active in the Oakland community by hiring locally and for its philanthropic contributions to places such as UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

Company founder Robert Schwartz, through his R.A.D. Schwartz Foundation, has also worked with Oakland Unified School District on tutoring programs, from the late 1970s in concert with then-Superintendent Marcus Foster, to 2013’s introduction of the peer tutoring resource center website, www.peertutoringresource.org.

“In creating the LinkSmart keyboard system, company founder Robert A.D. Schwartz and KSI CEO Phil Bruno saw the opportunity to not only produce a homegrown, game-changing medical aid, but to confirm Oakland’s status as the hottest new center for urban innovation,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement.

“Since its founding in East Oakland in 1979, KSI has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to local hiring and job creation — providing sustained employment for hundreds of Oakland residents engaged in the company’s sales, marketing, design and manufacturing activities,” she said.

The company found that by doing its manufacturing in-house, it could reduce delivery time on orders to three to four weeks, from the 12 to 20 weeks when its products were assembled in China, Bruno said.

Among Key Source’s 28 employees, “We’ve hired some really great software engineers. Highly qualified but over 35, let go by ageism created by the tech boom,” he said.

In addition to his company and his philanthropic work, Schwartz also plays clarinet and saxophone in a jazz band, the Therapists, that caters in particular to retirement homes, Bruno said. Check them out at comebackjazz.org.

Contact Mark Hedin at 510-293-2452, 408-759-2132 or mhedin@bayareanewsgroup.com.