It is a well known fact that hand hygiene practice in the hospital is nearly always suboptimal.The literature on hand hygiene is replete with strategies to improve practice.In this article published in American Journal of Infection Control, a hand hygiene reminder with either a congratulatory message or an encouragement message (for those with less than optimal hand hygiene compliance) was sent once weekly to staff in a 15 room infectious diseases ward in a French hospital.The unit employed an RFID automated hand hygiene monitoring system. Hand hygiene rose from a baseline of 15% to 23% following the alert notification.
In my opinion the hand hygiene adherence pre/post intervention is concerning and low, especially in an infectious diseases ward! This was possibly secondary to poor capture from the RFID automated adherence technology. What I found most interesting was the acceptability of the once weekly text message reminders by the frontline healthcare workers. There was little to no alert fatigue reported! This is promising.
If we can deploy a hand hygiene technology that accurately captures hand hygiene compliance (foam in/foam out), is coupled to targets with feedback and accountability, and, if that feedback can be automated (via text message once weekly) and tied to performance and encouragement, we may be on to a game changing strategy.
The quest for optimal hand hygiene enhancement continues...
