Print PageHand Hygiene Champions Keep up the Good Work at Beaumont Hospital
Monday May 25, 2015
The Hand Hygiene Champions Group was set up in Beaumont Hospital in the autumn of 2013. Hand hygiene being one of the most significant factors in the prevention and control of healthcare associated infections, the aim of this multidisciplinary group is to increase compliance with hand hygiene at the point of patient care.
To achieve this we carried out a number of hand hygiene perception surveys and based on some of the findings commenced a hand hygiene awareness campaign using posters, screen savers and hand hygiene champions visiting clinical areas, interacting directly with front line staff.
Creating posters and screen savers, we used some of the material made available by the World Health Organisation but management and front line staff were also happy to be part of this campaign and posing for locally designed posters, helping to demonstrate that hand hygiene was for everybody.
At the beginning of our campaign and again this year we also conducted a self assessment using the WHO Hand Hygiene Self Assessment Framework (210). From the beginning we were in the “Advanced Category” and really had to work on our “Leadership Criteria”. Overall we increased our score from 417 to 480 and on the ground this has translated into an increase in attendance at mandatory hand hygiene training from 83 – 94% and hand hygiene observation studies from 79 – 90%.
Figure 1: Improved attendance at bi-annual mandatory hand hygiene training.
Compliance with mandatory hand hygiene training was as low as 60% initially. This is now consistently above 80% and systems such as e-learning packages and blended learning are being put in place to achieve 100% compliance and to avoid dips in certain months such as when new NCHD’s commence.
Figure 2: Showing steady improvement in hand hygiene observational studies between 2011 and 2014.
While we are very happy to note the steady upward trend in hand hygiene observational studies, our aim for 2015 is to validate these results, ensuring a consistent approach to auditing across the organisation.
Also for 2015 the aim is to fine tune hand hygiene education focusing on technique using the Surewash system and on the WHO 5 moments, embedding them into practices by inclusion in policies and procedures and engaging with staff and patients at the front line.