Infection Prevention Manual

While most would agree that hand hygiene is of critical importance, many have found that measuring adherence to hand hygiene guidelines is not a simple task. The following are some of the specific challenges to measuring hand hygiene adherence: • Contact with patients or their environment takes place in many locations within Agency’s patients. • Opportunities for hand hygiene occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and involve both clinical and nonclinical staff. • The frequency of hand hygiene opportunities varies by the type of care provided, the unit, and patient factors. • Monitoring is often resource intensive; infection preventionists, quality improvement staff, and other health care workers (such as nursing, respiratory therapy, and so on) face numerous competing demands for their time and expertise. + $1' + <*,(1( 0 ($685(0(17 0 (7+2'6 We have to answers to a few key questions • Why do you want to measure hand hygiene practices, and what are your organization’s goals? • What elements of hand hygiene do you want to measure? • How do you want to measure hand hygiene? There are three main methods for measuring hand hygiene performance, each of which has advantages and disadvantages: • Directly observing • Measuring product use • Conducting surveys Observation involves directly watching and recording the hand hygiene behavior of health care workers and the physical environment. Product measurement indirectly assesses hand hygiene guideline adherence by allowing health care workers to calculate the amount of liquid soap, alcohol-based hand rub, and paper towels used in a given area of the organization. Surveys gather information on health care worker perceptions, attitudes, and practices related to hand hygiene, as well as patients’ and families’ attitudes and perceptions of the hand hygiene practices of health care workers. Using more than one method to measure hand hygiene performance is likely to yield more reliable results than using a single method. 'LUHFW 2EVHUYDWLRQ Direct observation of the hand hygiene behavior of health care workers is considered the “gold standard” of measurement methods. Observation allows to see which hand hygiene products are used, the thoroughness of cleansing, the tools and technique used for drying, the use of gloves, and whether the staff are performing hand hygiene whenever there is an opportunity to do so. This method allows observers (usually our supervisors) to see who is (and who is not) adhering to guidelines and to give prompt feedback to the Agency when improvement is needed. In addition, direct observation allows health care workers to evaluate Agency- specific factors that may influence hand hygiene guideline adherence. 6XSHUYLVRU UHSRUWV Your Agency Name (PN System)