Hand hygiene compliance – Improvement with multimodal approach in intensive care unit setting

Abstract

Introduction: Healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) pose a significant risk to patient's health with increasing morbidity and mortality. A large portion of HCAI can be prevented by hand hygiene, but adherence to hand hygiene has been found to be very low. Methodolgy: This study was conducted to assess the rate of hand hygiene compliance during 'my five moments of hand hygiene' as per the WHO guidelines in our intensive care units and to implement multimodal intervention strategies to improve hand hygiene compliance. Results: The average compliance amongst all HCWs in both ICUs was 45.7% before sensitisation which increased to 85.4% after sensitisation using multimodal strategies. Conclusion: Multimodal Intervention strategies such as the one we employed had a good impact in improving compliance in our ICU and these improvements can be easily duplicated in healthcare settings across the country.