Hand Hygiene
Observation Period: 2012
CHEO’s Target rate: 90% - Achieved rate: 78.4%
Hand hygiene is an important practice for health care providers and has a significant impact on reducing the spread of infections in hospitals. Hand hygiene is a different way of thinking about safety and patient care and involves everyone in the hospital, including patients and health care providers.
Effective hand hygiene practices in hospitals play a key role in improving patient and provider safety, and in preventing the spread of health care-associated infections.
Hand hygiene is a key program for CHEO and we have mobilized resources to enhance patient and health care provider safety through improved hand hygiene within our organization. Hand washing is something we all do, but it’s also something that we want to continue to do better — and are committed to improving.
How are the rates calculated?
Number of times hand hygiene was performed by health care provider before patient/patient environment contact = 123
Number of times hand hygiene was indicated before patient/patient environment contact = 171
123 (# of times hand hygiene performed) x 100
171 (# of observed hand hygiene indications)
Hand hygiene compliance rate before patient/patient environment = 71.9%
Number of times hand hygiene was performed by health care provider after patient/patient environment contact = 178
Number of times hand hygiene was indicated after patient/patient environment contact = 216
178 (# of times hand hygiene performed) x 100
216 (# of observed hand hygiene indications)
Hand hygiene compliance rate after patient/patient environment = 82.4%
Hand Hygiene: Information for Patients and Families
Patient safety remains the most important priority for CHEO and this involves ensuring that patients are not at risk for contracting healthcare-associated infections.
We have a number of practices in place to help prevent and control infections, including a comprehensive hand hygiene program. If you have any questions about the information below or about our hospital’s infection prevention and control program, please contact CHEO at 613-737-7600.
What are health care-associated infections?
Sometimes when patients are admitted to the hospital, they can get infections. These are called health care-associated infections.
How will the public reporting of hand hygiene compliance affect compliance among health care professionals?
There are many factors that will improve hand hygiene compliance. Mandatory public reporting is one element. Certainly the increasing recent attention on the issue as well as the provincial government’s multifaceted hand hygiene program called Just Clean Your Hands are important to ensuring effective hand hygiene at the right times.
Why is hand hygiene so important?
Hand hygiene is an important practice for health care providers and has a significant impact on reducing the spread of infections in hospitals. Hand hygiene is a different way of thinking about safety and patient care and involves everyone in the hospital, including patients and health care providers.
Effective hand hygiene practices in hospitals play a key role in improving patient and provider safety, and in preventing the spread of health care-associated infections.
What can patients do to help improve their own safety?
Hand hygiene involves everyone in the hospital, including patients. Hand cleaning is one of the best ways you and your health care team can prevent the spread of many infections. Patients and their visitors should also practice good hand hygiene before and after entering patient rooms.
More patient-specific information is available at http://www.ontario.ca/patientsafety and www.oha.com/patientsafetytips.
How does CHEO feel about its reported rates?
CHEO wholly committed to patient safety and quality care. CHEO is a safe hospital where every effort is made to ensure that children and youth will receive the highest-quality care.
The public reporting of hand hygiene compliance is another, helpful measure to ensure care becomes even safer, and improves over time. It provides a benchmark for tracking and monitoring performance improvement measures.
Hand washing is something we all do here at CHEO, but it’s also something that we want to continue to do better – and are committed to improving.
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors, The Wiggles, Donate Hand Washing Song
*credit to UNICEF Austrailia for allowing us to link to the video.