Hand Hygiene Compliance Rates
What is hand hygiene?
Hand hygiene is the action of cleaning your hands. Hands can be cleaned by using an alcohol-based hand rub which kills organisms in seconds or, when hands are visibly soiled, using soap and running water. As health care providers move from patient to patient and room to room while providing care, their hands pick up organisms which can cause infections. Hand hygiene works by interrupting this transmission of organisms.
Hand hygiene compliance rate
We assess hand hygiene compliance regularly in order to determine the effectiveness of our prevention program. As required by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, we report our hand hygiene compliance rates annually for before and after patient or patient environment contact.
Compliance rates are calculated by dividing the number of times hand hygiene was performed over the number of times hand hygiene was required to be performed.
|
Reporting Period
|
2014/ 15 | |
| Percent Compliance |
Moment 1 (before initial patient/patient environment contact): 85% Moment 4 (after patient/patient environment contact): 86% |
|
|
Reporting Period
|
2013/ 14 | |
| Percent Compliance |
Moment 1 (before initial patient/patient environment contact): 84% Moment 4 (after patient/patient environment contact): 86% |
|
What are we doing to improve hand hygiene compliance rates?
- Conducting regular hand hygiene audits and feedback sessions with front line staff
- Participating in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s Infection Prevention and Control Core Competencies Education Program
- Using the Provincial Infectious Diseases Advisory Committee’s (PIDAC) best practice guidelines to further develop our hand hygiene program
- Comprehensive hand washing and hand hygiene program mandatory part of orientation and training
- Further development of the Champions Program to support increased compliance with hand hygiene
- Providing ongoing communication and education for patients and staff
