Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner knows a thing or two about data — for the best-selling book, the journalist and writer examined troves of data to answer a variety of questions, including whether drug dealers still live with their moms and whether a gun or a swimming pool is more dangerous. And at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology 2016 Annual Conference, he took on hand hygiene data.
Data on hand hygiene is notoriously difficult to collect, thanks in no small part to the Hawthorne effect, as healthcare workers are more likely to wash their hands if they know they're being observed.
According to APIC Daily News, to combat this issue, Mr. Dubner told the crowd, "When you want to get good data, sometimes you have to get crafty; you have to get a little clever."
It turns out hospitals may also have to get "crafty" when it comes to moving the needle on hand hygiene compliance. Mr. Dubner told a story about Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, which was trying to get physician hand hygiene compliance to 100 percent, up from 60 percent.
Previous attempts at rewarding physicians for following procedure had unintended consequences, but that changed when an epidemiologist suggested committee members culture the bacteria on their hands. The committee took a photo of one of the petri dishes and made that the screensaver on all hospital computers.
This simple solution drove physician hand hygiene to nearly 100 percent, he said.