The issue of hand hygiene compliance continues to resurface in our discussions on infection
New electronic methods for monitoring hand hygiene practices are increasingly popular. These interventions are expensive, likely increase compliance with hand hygiene and may be superior to compliance assessments of hand hygiene by direct observation. As with any method of compliance monitoring, non-punitive feedback to healthcare workers is needed to further encourage improvements in practice.
However, as of today's date, I am
unable to find comparative data on the incremental benefit of
electronic hand hygiene technologies vs. direct hand hygiene observation with respect to
increased hand hygiene compliance and decreased healthcare associated infection rates.
We still have more work to do on the practice of hand hygiene.
