Patient Safety
March 1, 2006
Institute launches hand-hygiene campaign this month
The statistics are frightening. Approximately 2 million hospitalized patients in the United States each year acquire infections that are not related to their condition, and an astounding 90,000 of these individuals die annually from those infections, estimates the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
To combat this, Dana-Farber is making March a month for hand-hygiene awareness. Staff will be receiving ongoing reminders about hand hygiene through weekly tips on DFCI Online, e-mails, posters, buttons, and education at staff meetings.
The Institute's hand-hygiene compliance rate is around 85 percent, according to Susan O'Rourke, RN, of Infection Control. This rate far exceeds the national average for all hospitals, which is approximately 50 percent, but the stakes are being raised.
"The JCAHO [Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the accrediting body for hospitals] is now looking for a 90 percent compliance rate," explains Laurinda Morway of Dana-Farber's Center for Patient Safety. "The whole country, along with the CDC, is getting on board with this problem."
According to Morway, the Institute is seeking to surpass the Joint Commission's requirement by shooting for 95 percent compliance. Hand hygiene is always on the radar screen here, she says, as staff members work continuously through education and monitoring to ensure that caregivers are cleaning their hands. Now the time is right for giving their ongoing initiatives a boost, with March 5-11 designated as National Patient Safety Awareness Week by the National Patient Safety Foundation. The Dana-Farber campaign, which will last for the entire month of March, focuses on providers as well as patients and their family members.
Here's the rub
Why the focus on clean hands to prevent nosocomial infections, the term used to describe hospital-acquired infections not related to the patient's condition? According to the CDC, sanitizing one's hands is the most important measure for preventing the spread of germs.
The CDC came out in 2002 with hand-hygiene guidelines for healthcare organizations. Among their recommendations are the use of alcohol-based handrubs in addition to traditional handwashing with soap and water.
Alcohol-based handrubs address some of the barriers that healthcare providers face as they care for patients; these solutions are quicker, cleaner, easier to use, and are less irritating to skin than soap and water. In fact, the CDC asserts that an ICU nurse can save one hour's worth of time during an eight-hour shift using the handrubs instead of the traditional soap-and-water method.
Further, the CDC states that using gloves does not eliminate the need for hand hygiene, and, conversely, clean hands do not mean gloves are not necessary. The use of gloves reduces contamination by 70-80 percent, and helps to prevent cross-contamination between patients and healthcare providers. In addition, providers should change gloves before and after seeing each patient.
Saul Weingart, MD, director of Dana-Farber's Center for Patient Safety, encourages everyone to join the campaign. "What can you do?" he asks. "Watch for our posters, wear a button, and most important, wash you hands!"
For more information on the campaign, contact Susan O'Rourke in Infection Control at (617) 632-2452 or Laurinda Morway in the Center for Patient Safety at (617) 632-4980.
Back to Newsroom
