Hand hygiene compliance in Dutch general practice offices
- PDF / 681,172 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 21 Downloads / 167 Views
RESEARCH
Open Access
Hand hygiene compliance in Dutch general practice offices Nataliya Hilt1,2* , Mariëtte Lokate2, Alfons OldeLoohuis3, Marlies E. J. L. Hulscher4, Alex W. Friedrich2 and Andreas Voss1,5,6
Abstract Background: Hand hygiene (HH) is considered one of the most important measures to prevent healthcareassociated infections (HAI). Most studies focus on HH compliance within the hospital setting, whereas little is known for the outpatient setting. The aim of this study was to evaluate compliance with HH recommendations in general practitioners (GPs) office, based on World Health Organization (WHO) guideline. Methods: An observational study was conducted at five Dutch GPs-practices in September 2017. We measured HH compliance through direct observation using WHO’s ‘five moments of hand hygiene’ observation tool. All observations were done by one trained professional. Results: We monitored a total of 285 HH opportunities for 30 health care workers (HCWs). The overall compliance was 37%. Hand hygiene compliance was 34, 51 and 16% for general practitioners, practice assistants, and nurses, respectively. It varies between 63% after body fluid exposure and no HH performance before-, during and after home visit of a patient (defined as moment 5). The preferred method of HH was soap and water (63%) versus 37% for alcohol-based hand rub (ABHR). The median time of disinfecting hands was 8 s (range 6–11 s) for HCWs in our study. Conclusions: HH compliance among HCWs in Dutch GPs was found to be low, especially with regard to home visits. The WHO recommended switch from hand wash to ABHR was not implemented by the majority of HCWs in 5 observed GPs offices. Keywords: Hand hygiene, General practitioners, Alcohol-based hand rub, Primary care
Background In 1847, Semmelweis has already reported about the importance of hand hygiene (HH) in the control of infection [1]. While hands certainly are a relevant route of transmission of infection, including outpatient care setting (for example, visit to a general practitioner’s (GPs) office) [2], the effectiveness of good hand hygiene has * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Radboudumc, Department of Medical Microbiology, Geert Grooteplein Zuid 10, 6525 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands 2 Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Hanzeplein 1, 9713 GZ Groningen, The Netherlands Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
mainly been demonstrated in institutionalized healthcare [3–5]. Despite this evidence of hand contamination and colonization by potentially harmful microorganisms [2], very few reports of outbreaks in outpatient settings have identified hands as the transmission route of the causative microorganisms [6, 7]. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations on hand hygiene best practices and improvement strategies within its campaign ‘Clean Care is Safer Care’ [8] are considered the gold standard for healthcare worldwide. Evaluation and feedback of HH performance are important elem
Data Loading...
