Hand Hygiene Intervention With Patient Participation Increases Healthcare Worker Compliance, Study Finds

Healio (5/23, Stulpin) reported a study presented at the SHEA Spring meeting found that “a hand hygiene intervention, which encouraged patients and visitors to the participating units to perform audits” of healthcare workers (HCWs), successfully improved compliance. In the pilot program, “a poster with program information and a QR code linked to the audit form was placed in each room and/or handed to patients and visitors. Patients were instructed to scan the QR code to access the audit form which included three questions regarding which location they were at, if the HCWs performed hand hygiene and if the patient/visitor would be comfortable asking staff to perform hand hygiene.” Patient observation audits indicated that “the HCW hand hygiene compliance rate averaged 92% in the inpatient units across 5 months.” In the outpatient units, “the average HCW hand hygiene compliance rate was also 92%.”