A five-point set of guidelines is proving effective around the world in improving hand hygiene among health workers, a study shows today.
The guidelines have been developed by the World Health Organisation.
A new study shows they have worked successfully in countries ranging from Mali and Pakistan to Costa Rica and Italy.
The study began in 2006 and involved 55 departments in 43 hospitals in five countries.
Reporting in Lancet Infectious Diseases, researchers say it led to compliance by staff increasing from 50% to 67%.
The project is the latest by WHO aiming at developing simple world-wide good practice. The concept of surgical check-lists to improve safety in operating theatres has been adopted widely.
The hand hygiene strategies says workers should have access to alcohol-based hand rubs at the point of patient care – and training on when it is most important to clean the hands.
It says there should be also be visual reminders, monitoring and feedback and creation of a culture of attention to safety.
The strategy says the critical moments for hand hygiene come before touching a patient, before procedures which must be clean, after contact with bodily fluids, after touching a patient and after touching patient surroundings.
Former UK chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson, now WHO envoy for patient safety, said: “Sometimes the simplest and most cost-effective interventions can have the greatest impact.
"We now have the effective methods to eliminate millions of avoidable sicknesses and death, and reduce the growing problem of antimicrobial resistant infections."
Researcher Professor Didier Pittet, of the University of Geneva Hospitals, Switzerland, said: “WHO’s hand-hygiene improvement strategy is recommended by both the US and European Centres for Disease Control, the Joint Commission International and accredited bodies, and almost all professional organisations worldwide."
Lancet Infectious Diseases 23 August 2013 [abstract]
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