Nearly Half of Health Care Workers Ignore Critical Hand Hygiene Protocol
Nearly Half of Health Care Workers Ignore Critical Hand Hygiene Protocol A global survey by the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that approximately 50% of health care professionals do not wash their hands before providing patient care. The startling survey
Nearly Half of Health Care Workers Ignore Critical Hand Hygiene Protocol
A global survey by the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that approximately 50% of health care professionals do not wash their hands before providing patient care. The startling survey results were presented at the 21st European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Milan, Italy, in late May, and included data collected from 327 health care facilities across 47 countries.
Participating health care facilities were asked to monitor health care workers’ compliance with cleaning their hands prior to touching patients (known as “Moment 1”), which is considered the most critical measure of WHO’s My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene—part of the Save Lives: Clean Your Hands campaign.
“We know Moment 1—before touching the patient—is particularly important, as this indication protects patients from the powerful germs on health care workers’ hands after they touch other patients,” notes Benedetta Allegranzi, MD, of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety and lead author of the report.
Of the health care facilities surveyed, North American and South American facilities showed the lowest compliance with Moment 1 hand hygiene standards. Just 26% of these health care workers—or approximately 6,000 out of 23,000—washed their hands prior to touching patients. European nations posted the highest rate of compliance at 64%, while worldwide compliance with WHO’s Moment 1 was reported at 51%.
| World Health Organization’s My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene
The My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene approach defines the key moments when health care workers should perform hand hygiene. This evidence-based, field-tested, user-centered approach is designed to be easy to learn, logical and applicable in a wide range of settings. This approach recommends that health care workers should clean their hands:
To learn more, visit the World Health Organization by clicking here. |
