Clean Care is Safer Care

05 May 2010 - Increasing hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers

Photo of washing hands Hand hygiene is the primary measure proven to be effective in preventing HCAI and the spread of antimicrobial resistance. However, it has been shown by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that healthcare workers encounter difficulties in complying with hand hygiene indications at different levels.

Insufficient or very low compliance rates have been reported from both developed and developing countries. Adherence of healthcare workers to recommended hand hygiene procedures has been reported as variable, with mean baseline rates ranging from 5% to 89% and an overall average of 38.7%. Hand hygiene performance varies according to work intensity and several other factors.

Among the perceived barriers to appropriate hand hygiene reported by WHO last year were:

Lack of active participation in hand hygiene promotion at individual or institutional level
Lack of institutional priority for hand hygiene
Lack of administrative sanction of non-compliers/rewarding of compliers
Lack of institutional safety climate/culture of personal accountability of healthcare workers to perform hand hygiene

This year's World Health Organisation's global observation survey on hand hygiene compliance starts today.

NETconsent View

Getting UK healthcare workers to comply with hand hygiene policies continues to be problematic. Both NHS and private sector hospitals are striving to meet compliance obligations which help reduce the incidents of Healthcare Acquired Infections (HCAI).

HCAI is a major problem for patient safety and its prevention must be a first priority for settings and institutions committed to making healthcare safer. Consequences of HCAI include patients becoming more seriously ill, requiring extended stays in hospital and tragically, even patient death. Resulting bad publicity and ensuing compensation claims further adversely affect healthcare organisation's reputation and add a significant financial burden.

NETconsent has been working with several Chief Executives and Clinical Directors across NHS Trusts and Partnership Organisations to help them communicate policies and relevant procedures more effectively to improve compliance and modify healthcare worker behaviour.

NETconsent Compliance Suite addresses many of the barriers to appropriate hand hygiene identified by the WHO. Benefits include:

Users see and sign up to policies and associated procedures in prescribed timescales.
A culture of personal accountability is instilled in healthcare workers.
NETconsent allows for feedback from healthcare workers to influence policy changes.
Line managers are provided with the tools to monitor practice in relation to policy raising the priority of policy adherence.
Provides evidence of non-compliance to enble remedial action to be taken promptly.

Call NETconsent to discuss how you can more effectively promote a safety aware culture and make policies more visible and enforceable to raise standards of individual accountability and conduct.

Download sample healthcare compliance reports to see how NETconsent policy management reports are used to help managers work more effectively.