World Hand Hygiene Day: Do your part to reduce spread of infection

May 5 is the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Hand Hygiene Day and serves as a reminder to all healthcare workers that practicing frequent hand hygiene (washing with soap and water or using hand sanitizer) is essential to prevent the spread of infections in WVU Medicine facilities.

To remind staff to perform hand hygiene and deliver better patient outcomes, WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals uses the Ecolab® Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring System, which accurately records hand hygiene events using employee badges, bed beacons, and dispenser sensors to provide visual and audible feedback to staff, reminding them to perform hand hygiene. Like a seatbelt in a car, this reminder system helps provide a safer working environment for staff and protects against the spread of infection.

For optimal performance of the Ecolab® Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring System, wear your badge above the waist and face the dispenser for best capture of each hand hygiene event.

“The automated hand hygiene program is an investment in our commitment to patient safety and quality improvement,” said Lori Sisler, MSN, RN-BC, manager of quality outcomes and infection control at WVU Hospitals. “Hand hygiene is a basic skill of infection prevention everyone can practice to reduce the spread of infection, keep patients safe, and protect staff.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about one in 31 hospital patients experiences at least one healthcare-associated infection on any given day. Clean your hands often, and request that others do the same. Opportunities to continue practicing good hand hygiene include:

Before

• Entering a patient’s room
• Touching a patient
• Performing an aseptic task or handling invasive medical devices
• Moving from work on a soiled body site to a clean body site on the same patient

After

• Contact with blood, body fluids, or contaminated surfaces
• Coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose
• Leaving a patient’s room
• Removing gloves
• Touching a patient or the patient’s immediate environment
• Using the restroom

View the CDC's Clean Hands Count fact sheet for more hand hygiene tips and information.