Hand Hygiene

The Standard Precautions concept in healthcare dictates that healthcare workers assess risk in advance of a patient interaction and use appropriate interventions such as barriers, hand hygiene, and/or surface disinfection, to address the risk and prevent becoming contaminated by the patient or the patient’s environment. This approach has generally been credited with helping hospital employees protect themselves from acquiring infectious agents on a daily basis. However, a growing body of research has called into question whether this approach is in fact adequate.

The medical field has known for almost 200 years that disinfecting hands saves lives by reducing the ability to carry disease. But even in 2016, global hand hygiene compliance remains shockingly low. At any given time, the World Health Organization (WHO) notes the presence of at least 1.4 million healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), even as the nonprofit accreditation body the Joint Commission has dubbed hand hygiene “the most important intervention for preventing HAIs.”

While the saying goes that no one comes to work looking to make mistakes, they do happen, and they can lead to serious adverse events and poor patient outcomes. Where humans can introduce errors into a process, machines can help ensure standardization and uniformity, and an increasing number of healthcare organizations are evaluating and purchasing automated systems that boost their risk management strategies and patient safety efforts. Automation-driven processes are free from human fatigue and error, so they can help provide consistency and accuracy and potentially lead to a reduction in patient complications, infections and deaths. More predictable outcomes are possible with automated technology, and higher throughout can be achieved.

Even if they appear clean, your hands can be a vehicle for spreading potentially deadly foodborne illnesses and healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). To reduce the transmission of pathogens, proper and regular hand care is key. Equally important is creating accountability around hand hygiene among employees.  But are we focusing too much of the discussion on which pathogens are killed and in how many seconds?  Are these facts convincing employees to increase handwashing and the use of hand sanitizer at critical moments? Unfortunately, the current approach isn’t as effective as it could be. And without compliance, these disease-causing microorganisms remain on hands. Uncovering factors that increase compliance can help protect employees, building visitors and an organization’s brand.