Health IT, Hospitals

Survey: Hand hygiene at hospitals trending toward electronic monitoring

Hospitals still largely rely on manual methods to track hand hygiene despite the prevalence of […]

Hospitals still largely rely on manual methods to track hand hygiene despite the prevalence of available electronic technologies to monitor cleanliness, a new DebMed survey found, but a growing number of facilities have plans to implement monitoring technologies.

There is a “positive trend in not only the adoption of better technologies, but also the more imminent plans for purchase” for hospitals not yet using electronic monitoring, according to the survey.

Thirty-three percent of hospitals said they are in the process of implementing some sort of monitoring system, while another 43 percent say they are currently considering the approach. There was also a 2 percent increase in facilities using electronic monitoring since 2012.

That’s good news, considering other findings in the survey showed a “vast inconsistency in hand hygiene compliance reporting. The survey included more than 400 infection prevention experts, nurses and healthcare leaders.

Among key findings, 66 percent of respondents said their facilities reported hygiene compliance of 81 percent or better.

However, 59 percent think the actual number is less than 70 percent. And only 13 percent of respondents said they were “extremely satisfied” with the reliability of compliance data.

The survey also found significant inconsistencies between healthcare workers’ beliefs, and the actual practices of hand hygiene compliance in facilities, among them:
– 78 percent believe electronic hand hygiene compliance monitoring is a more accurate option than direct observation yet;
– 62 percent use manual direct observation by staff as the primary method used to measure and report hand hygiene compliance, with another 34 percent using manual direct observation by “secret shoppers”;
– 88 percent believe the “Hawthorne effect,” which states that people will change their behavior if they know they are being watched, impacts the accuracy of reported hand hygiene compliance rates;
– 94 percent believe the WHO Five Moments and CDC are a higher clinical standard that help reduce the spread of infections better than cleaning hands before and after patient care, a four percent increase from 2013;
– 63 percent teach staff to follow the WHO and CDC hand hygiene guidelines, but only 44 percent actually follow those standards, as the majority (54 percent) only clean hands when entering and exiting patient rooms.

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