Reducing health care–associated infections by implementing a novel all hands on deck approach for hand hygiene compliance

Abstract

Hand hygiene is a key intervention for preventing health care-associated infections; however, maintaining high compliance is a challenge, and accurate measurement of compliance can be difficult. A novel program that engaged all health care personnel to measure compliance and provide real-time interventions overcame many barriers for compliance measurement and proved effective for sustaining high compliance and reducing health care-associated infections.

Preventing Transmission of Multidrug-Resistant Pathogens in the Intensive Care Unit

“…Investigators at the University of North Carolina addressed both goals by opening compliance measurement to frontline health care personnel in a broad range of disciplines, thereby generating more robust monitoring data and improving compliance in the involved disciplines. 30 Early-generation electronic monitoring systems have had mixed results, showing that there is room for improvement in the automated systems and the study designs used to evaluate them. 31,32 …”

Reduction of Healthcare-Associated Infections by Exceeding High Compliance with Hand Hygiene Practices

“…Key features were that the focus for observation was simply on cleaning hands upon entering and leaving patient rooms and that all healthcare personnel (including physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, nursing assistants, hospital unit coordinators, housekeeping, radiology, occupational/physical/recreational therapists, nutrition and food services staff, phlebotomists, and respiratory therapists) were asked to make observations and provide immediate feedback to each other ( 3 ). Previously, infection preventionists and designated nursing staff on each inpatient unit performed covert observations of hand hygiene compliance according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; Atlanta, GA, USA) indications for hand hygiene ( 1 ), and compliance reports by location were disseminated quarterly.…”

The World Health Organization's Clean Hands Save Lives: A concept applicable to equine medicine as Clean Hands Save Horses

“…; Sickbert‐Bennett et al . ). For instance the British Clean Your Hands campaign held between 2004 and 2008 revealed halving of the number of methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteraemias and Clostridium difficile infections together with a tripling use of alcohol rub substances (Stone et al .…”