1. TeleTracking Technologies, Hill-Rom Company and GOJO have joined forces to create a real-time hand hygiene compliance monitoring system.
2. Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore has created the “Hopkins Hands” hand hygiene website, offering hand hygiene resources, including a compliance checklist for unit leaders to ensure proper protocol is being followed.
3. Hospitals are employing radio frequency identification systems that track individual hand hygiene compliance in a unit. Hospitals such as Riverside Methodist in Columbus, Ohio, and Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pa., have implemented such monitoring systems and have seen a dramatic increase in hand hygiene compliance.
4. The Joint Commission presents three questions a healthcare organization should ask itself before choosing a hand hygiene surveillance or measurement program.
5. Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles shares its best practices for reducing healthcare-associated infections, one of which was observing hand hygiene compliance as a performance measure for employees. If employees failed to follow proper protocol, they could face disciplinary action.
6. Healthcare workers attributed their lapses in hand hygiene to forgetfulness, lack of concentration and lack of knowledge of protocols, according to a study in American Journal of Infection Control.
7. DebMed created an electronic surveillance hand hygiene monitoring system based on the World Health Organization’s “Five Moments for Hand Hygiene” to increase compliance, reduce infections and cut costs.
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