Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

26 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY Posting Gross Pictures of Bacteria at Hand-Washing Stations Increases Compliance By Max Green I t turns out disgust is a pretty good motivator for driving compliance with hand-washing regulations in clinical settings. at's according to new research presented June 11 at the Association for Profession- als in Infection Control and Epidemiology's 43rd annual conference in Charlotte, N.C. A study conducted at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Mich., involved taking samples of the bacteria on healthcare workers' hands in hospital units with low hand-washing compliance, then showing the workers pictures of bacterial colonies similar to those found on their skin. "Hospital staff wanted to wash their hands aer looking at the book and picturing similar contamination on their own skin," Ashley Grego- ry, an infection prevention specialist who co-led the project, said in a statement. "Using this example, other institutions may be able to change behavior and improve their hand hygiene compliance rates by influencing staff to connect the images of microbial contamination with non-adherence to hand hygiene guidelines." e units involved in the study demonstrated increased compliance between 11 percent and 46 percent. is isn't the first research to suggest a visual stimulant helps improve compliance. A study published earlier this year found that hanging an image of a man's staring eyes at hand-washing stations was associated with a significant increase in the volume of hand hygiene solutions dispensed. n Where is the Sink? Poor Location Contributes to Low Hand Hygiene Compliance By Shannon Barnet I mproving the location of sinks may increase hand hygiene compliance following contact with pa- tients with Clostridium difficile infection, according to a study published in BMC Infectious Diseases. Researchers conducted a cross-sectional study in a 637-bed hospital in Canada, performing direct unob- trusive observations of healthcare workers. The study authors also examined the location of sinks in relation to patients' rooms. All total, the researchers observed 247 hand hygiene opportunities following care of a C. diff patient and recorded a hand-washing compliance rate of only 14.2 percent. The problem may be partially attrib- utable to the fact that the median distance between the C. diff patient zone and the nearest sink was 13.1 meters and sinks were only directly visible from the patient room doorway 33.2 percent of the time. Additionally, a multivariate analysis showed a farther distance between the patient zone and the nearest sink was inversely associated with hand hygiene compliance. According to the study authors, strategies to improve sink location and hand hygiene compliance are "ur- gently needed." n Which Factor is Associated With Hand Hygiene Compliance — Age or Physician Specialty? By Shannon Barnet F ive researchers have suggested physician specialty is more closely related to hand hygiene compliance rates than a physician's age. The researchers conducted a study at the Virginia Hos- pital Center in Arlington using observations gathered by "secret shoppers" and shared their results in a letter to the editor published in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. All total, 209 observations were collected between January 2014 and December 2014. The hand hygiene compliance rate was similar among physicians over the age of 50 (53 percent) and those under the age of 50 (55 percent). The authors picked 50 as the age to cut off their cohorts because the CDC pub- lished its first hand hygiene guidelines in 1985. "Those who are under age 50 would have likely started their medical education after this document was pub- lished," the authors wrote. The researchers saw the biggest difference between specialties — 76 percent of physicians practicing a medical specialty complied with hand hygiene standards, com- pared to only 38 percent of those practicing a surgical specialty. For the sake of the study, hand hygiene compliance was defined as the number of times hand hygiene was observed compared to the number of patient-provider en- counters recorded. The overall compliance rate recorded in the study was 54 percent. n

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