14
INFECTION
PREVENTION
T
here are many high-tech tools on the market
designed to improve hand hygiene compli-
ance, but one hospital was able to achieve im-
proved compliance using less conventional methods
— exposing workers and visitors to a citrus smell
and imagery of a man's staring eyes.
Researchers conducted trials in a surgical inten-
sive care unit at a teaching hospital in Miami to test
whether certain cues — like images or smells —
would alter behavior among healthcare workers and
hospital visitors. e concept is taken from insights
from behavioral science.
In one trial, the researchers positioned a picture
of a man's intense staring eyes above the alcohol
hand gel dispenser outside a patient room. Hand
hygiene compliance increased 33.3 percent aer the
addition of the picture. e researchers also con-
ducted the study using a picture of a set of female
eyes, but that picture was associated with a 5 percent
decrease in hand hygiene compliance, when com-
pared to the control group.
In another trial, the research team exposed indi-
viduals in the surgical ICU to a citrus smell. Com-
pared to the control group — which had a compli-
ance rate of roughly 15 percent — nearly half (46.9
percent) of those exposed to the citrus smell used
the alcohol hand gel dispenser.
"Based on these preliminary findings, we believe
that further research in this area should be per-
formed in order to better determine whether prim-
ing interventions could be a powerful tool in en-
couraging hand-washing to improve infection rates,"
concluded researcher Ivo Vlaev, of the Warwick
Business School in the U.K. n
Unconventional Methods Improve Hand
Hygiene in One Hospital Study
By Shannon Barnet
BECKER'S
7
th
Annual
Meeting
2016
April
27-30,
2016
|
Hyatt
Regency,
Chicago
Register
at
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/conference/
