When asked how they would improve hand hygiene compliance, a group of senior managers at a hospital in Australia came up with seven main strategies, according to a study published in BMC Infectious Diseases.
Researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with 13 senior managers at a teaching hospital, asking them to suggest new strategies to improve hand hygiene compliance or for any ideas to strengthen existing strategies. The study authors then performed thematic analysis of the interviews.
Through that analysis, they found the following seven themes:
- Start the culture change with leaders
- Refresh the message
- Connect the World Health Organization's five moments for hand hygiene to the whole patient journey
- Provide actionable audit results
- Empower patients to remind healthcare workers to wash their hands
- Possibly reframe non-compliance with hand hygiene protocol as a healthcare error
- Introduce penalties for non-compliance