Anesthesia providers had a very low rate of hand hygiene compliance — an average of 2.9 percent —which contributes to contamination of anesthesia work environment surfaces, according to a study in the American Journal of Infection Control.
Researchers studied five surgical cases using video observation to assess hand hygiene compliance based on World Health Organization guidelines. They also took bacterial cultures of high-contact objects to characterize bacterial transmission.
Hand hygiene compliance was lowest during the first and last 20 minutes of the operation, the researchers found, and those time periods also had the highest bacterial contamination on the 20 most frequently touched objects. The providers were most likely to follow hand hygiene guidelines after a potential body fluid exposure.
"Compliance with current [hand hygiene] recommendations by anesthesia providers is not feasible," the study authors concluded. "However, there does appear to be a correlation between HH compliance rates and bacterial contamination of the [anesthesia work environment], an observation that should stimulate further work to design new methods for control of bacterial transmission in operating rooms."
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