Overcoming the Obstacles: Improving Hand Hygiene Compliance

Hand hygiene is the single most important and effective practice healthcare professionals can do to prevent the spread of microorganisms that cause HAIs!

Gail Fraine, RN, BSN, CIC

Learning Objective: To acknowledge the obstacles that keep clinicians from cleaning their hands and present ways to overcome those obstacles.

Clinicians who work in healthcare MUST perform hand hygiene in order to prevent infections in their patients. And yet even now, years after the release of the CDC’s Hand Hygiene Guideline, compliance is still abysmally low.

Are you hearing these common excuses?

• I’m so busy… I just forget / I don’t have time!
• I have to go in and out of patient rooms all the time. I can’t stop outside every room and wash!
• I wear gloves all the time for my job, so I don’t need to do hand hygiene.
• I’m confused about when to wash with soap and water and when to use an alcohol hand rub.
• The dispensers aren’t conveniently located, or they are empty or broken!
• How can I perform hand hygiene before going into the patient’s room if my hands are full?
• My hands are chapped and hurt from frequent hand hygiene, so I don’t do it any more than I have to.
• I AM cleaning my hands when I’m supposed to! (No, you’re not!)

This important program acknowledges the obstacles that keep clinicians from cleaning their hands, and presents ways to overcome them. This education complements new initiatives by the Joint Commission, The World Health Organization, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in order to improve hand hygiene compliance, while at the same time informing clinicians on the important facts contained in the CDC’s Hand Hygiene Guideline.

• New Employee Orientation
• Annual In-Service
• Nursing Education
• Remedial/Risk Reduction Training
• General Staff Education
• Medical Staff