Here are seven recently published studies on hand hygiene.
1. Wording in messages to encourage hand hygiene could lead to significant changes in compliance. In two field experiments, healthcare professionals posted two signs that either emphasized personal safety or patient safety: "Hand hygiene prevents you from catching disease" and "Hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases." Their results showed that a single word-change (from "you" to "patients") significantly increased use of soap and hand gels.
2. A multifaceted hand hygiene program helped boost physician and nurse compliance nearly two- and four-fold, respectively. For their study, researchers developed a hand hygiene program for a hospital's department of internal medicine. The program consisted of hand hygiene education, feedback, reminders, social influence activities including the use of role models and more. The results showed overall hand hygiene compliance skyrocketed from 27 percent at baseline to 83 percent directly post-implementation to 75 percent six months post-implementation.
3. Alcohol handrubbing is just as effective as chlorhexidine handwashing but may be more time efficient. Researchers compared three hand hygiene protocols: alcohol handrubs with alcohol covering all hand surfaces; alcohol handrubs using the standard 7-step technique; and chlorhexidine handrubs using the standard 7-step technique. Bacterial samples were taken from 60 medical and 60 nursing staff before and after each protocol. All three protocols reduced bacteria on medical and nursing staff members' hands. However, alcohol handrubs covering all hand surfaces took less time than the other two protocols.
4. Recent research suggests the combination of technology and verbal feedback may improve and sustain hand hygiene practices among healthcare personnel. A remote video auditor observed employees washing their hands or using the sanitizers and assigned either a "pass" or a "fail." One 16-week study period assessed hand hygiene practices with the video auditing alone, and another 91-week study period assessed hand hygiene practices with video auditing and performance feedback. The results showed hand hygiene rates were less than 10 percent during the 16-week auditing-only period. That rate skyrocketed to 81.6 percent during a 16-week feedback period.
5. Anesthesia providers may demonstrate poor compliance to hand hygiene practices due to heavy workloads. Over the four-week period, secret observers at a teaching hospital recorded approximately 8,000 hand hygiene opportunities, averaging 34-41 opportunities per hour. In addition, the aggregate failure rate was 82 percent among anesthesia providers. The researchers suggested clinical leaders investigate novel approaches to boost hand hygiene among anesthesia providers.
6. Nail picks and brushes have shown to be ineffective in boosting hand hygiene. Researchers assigned 60 nurses to one of three hand scrub protocols: using surgical scrub alone (control), using a nail pick during the surgical scrub or using a brush during surgical scrub. The final analysis showed bacterial counts one hour after scrubbing were lower in the control group than the two interventions.
7. Waterless hand scrubs may be equally as effective as traditional hand scrub formulations. Researchers randomly assigned 100 operating room staff members to use either a waterless scrub (containing 1 percent chlorhexidine gluconate) or traditional scrubs for two days. Researchers found 1-9 colony-forming units and 1-5 colony-forming units on seven waterless scrub samples and seven traditional scrub samples. They did, however, conclude this difference was not statistically significant.
1. Wording in messages to encourage hand hygiene could lead to significant changes in compliance. In two field experiments, healthcare professionals posted two signs that either emphasized personal safety or patient safety: "Hand hygiene prevents you from catching disease" and "Hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases." Their results showed that a single word-change (from "you" to "patients") significantly increased use of soap and hand gels.
2. A multifaceted hand hygiene program helped boost physician and nurse compliance nearly two- and four-fold, respectively. For their study, researchers developed a hand hygiene program for a hospital's department of internal medicine. The program consisted of hand hygiene education, feedback, reminders, social influence activities including the use of role models and more. The results showed overall hand hygiene compliance skyrocketed from 27 percent at baseline to 83 percent directly post-implementation to 75 percent six months post-implementation.
3. Alcohol handrubbing is just as effective as chlorhexidine handwashing but may be more time efficient. Researchers compared three hand hygiene protocols: alcohol handrubs with alcohol covering all hand surfaces; alcohol handrubs using the standard 7-step technique; and chlorhexidine handrubs using the standard 7-step technique. Bacterial samples were taken from 60 medical and 60 nursing staff before and after each protocol. All three protocols reduced bacteria on medical and nursing staff members' hands. However, alcohol handrubs covering all hand surfaces took less time than the other two protocols.
4. Recent research suggests the combination of technology and verbal feedback may improve and sustain hand hygiene practices among healthcare personnel. A remote video auditor observed employees washing their hands or using the sanitizers and assigned either a "pass" or a "fail." One 16-week study period assessed hand hygiene practices with the video auditing alone, and another 91-week study period assessed hand hygiene practices with video auditing and performance feedback. The results showed hand hygiene rates were less than 10 percent during the 16-week auditing-only period. That rate skyrocketed to 81.6 percent during a 16-week feedback period.
5. Anesthesia providers may demonstrate poor compliance to hand hygiene practices due to heavy workloads. Over the four-week period, secret observers at a teaching hospital recorded approximately 8,000 hand hygiene opportunities, averaging 34-41 opportunities per hour. In addition, the aggregate failure rate was 82 percent among anesthesia providers. The researchers suggested clinical leaders investigate novel approaches to boost hand hygiene among anesthesia providers.
6. Nail picks and brushes have shown to be ineffective in boosting hand hygiene. Researchers assigned 60 nurses to one of three hand scrub protocols: using surgical scrub alone (control), using a nail pick during the surgical scrub or using a brush during surgical scrub. The final analysis showed bacterial counts one hour after scrubbing were lower in the control group than the two interventions.
7. Waterless hand scrubs may be equally as effective as traditional hand scrub formulations. Researchers randomly assigned 100 operating room staff members to use either a waterless scrub (containing 1 percent chlorhexidine gluconate) or traditional scrubs for two days. Researchers found 1-9 colony-forming units and 1-5 colony-forming units on seven waterless scrub samples and seven traditional scrub samples. They did, however, conclude this difference was not statistically significant.