Republished: Improving hand hygiene in a paediatric hospital: a multimodal quality improvement approach

Postgraduate Medical Journal
Ahmed JamalD Andresen

Abstract

Effective hand hygiene has long been recognised as an important way to reduce the transmission of bacterial and viral pathogens in healthcare settings. However, many studies have shown that adherence to hand hygiene remains low, and improvement efforts have often not delivered sustainable results. The Children's Hospital at Westmead is the largest tertiary paediatric hospital in Sydney, Australia. The hospital participated in a state-wide 'Clean hands save lives' campaign which was initiated in 2006. Strong leadership, good stakeholder engagement, readily accessible alcohol-based hand rub at the point of patient care, a multifaceted education programme, monitoring of staff, adherence to recommended hand hygiene practices and contemporaneous feedback of performance data have significantly improved and maintained compliance with hand hygiene. Hand hygiene compliance has increased from 23% in 2006 to 87% in 2011 (p<0.001). Sustained improvement in compliance with hand hygiene has been evident in the last 4 years. A decline in a set of hospital-acquired infections (including rotavirus, multiresistant organism transmission, and nosocomial bacteraemia) has also been noted as hand hygiene rates have improved. Monthly usage of alcohol-...Continue Reading

Citations

Jul 3, 2013·Journal of the American College of Radiology : JACR·Richard DuszakSandra Thompson-Jaeger
Jun 14, 2012·Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health·David Isaacs
Dec 4, 2014·The Lancet Infectious Diseases·Walter ZinggUNKNOWN systematic review and evidence-based guidance on organization of hospital infection control programmes (SIGHT) study group

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