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We all know that good hand hygiene is a factor key to preventing infections. Knowing that is only half the battle—to drive real change in infection prevention, initiatives must target the team’s perceptions and social behaviors. Here are some things that industry leaders are doing to promote hand hygiene and infection prevention.

The Joint Commission Hand Hygiene Project

This Hand Hygiene Project  by the Joint Commission for Transforming Healthcare included eight hospitals from across the country. These hospitals were chosen because they already had Robust Process Improvement (RPI) programs in place for hand hygiene and included:

• • Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, California
• • Exempla Lutheran Medical Center, Colorado
• • Froedtert Hospital, Wisconsin
• • The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Maryland
• • Memorial Hermann The Woodlands, Texas
• • Trinity Health-St. Joseph Mercy Health System, Michigan
• • Virtua, New Jersey
• • Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, North Carolina

The project report noted that all eight hospitals had “well-established RPI infrastructure at their hospital,” and utilized Lean Six Sigma methodologies for quality control.

Improved Compliance Approaches

This Becker's Clinical Leadership and Infection Control article  highlights the approaches taken by twenty hospitals to address the issue of improving hand hygiene and infection prevention. They include both low-tech and high-tech approaches, including things like:

Reminders

• • Computer screensavers
• • Posters
• • Buttons
• • Stop signs
• • Whiteboard messages
• • Videos

Monitors

• • Trained observers
• • Individual (peer) observers
• • Remote video monitoring
• • Radiofrequency identification linked to employee ID badges

Positive and Negative Incentives

• • Linking to performance review
• • Disciplinary actions for failures
• • Monetary rewards for compliance
• • "Caught in the act" rewards for compliance

What Johns Hopkins Has Done

Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, MD has instituted a Hopkins Hands group of programs, to promote Best Practices for hand hygiene, one of which is Hopkins Hands at Work.

One of the incentives is a traveling trophy awarded monthly to the nursing unit with the highest hand hygiene compliance rating.

Another program is that of raffling off a pizza party or ice cream social on a quarterly basis to one of the units that achieves an 85% monthly compliance score.

Still another incentive is to provide a sticker to individuals practicing good hand hygiene. Recipients of the stickers are then entered into a quarterly raffle for "great prizes, such as a Kindle or one of many customized gift baskets."

Supporting the hand hygiene efforts are a group of hand hygiene championsas well as a creative arts Clean Hands Contest.

The Ventyv Solution

At Ventyv™ we know that proper hand hygiene is an extremely important part of infection prevention and protection.  We also know that infection prevention and protection goes beyond hand hygiene - washing - to include hand protection - using gloves.

Our Ventyv™ Menagerie of single-use gloves gives you a hand with your infection prevention measures. Our high-quality gloves are comfortable and provide the right protection you need every time. We have a whole menagerie of products that will help you and your staff keep infection in check. Together, we can Outsmart Infection™ and change the world for the better. Call us at 1-888-4Ventyv or click here to contact us for more information.