Special Report
Hand hygiene is for life: not just 5thMay
May is the annual focal point for celebrations surrounding theWorld Health Organisation’s ongoing commitment to improving hand hygiene in healthcare environments. Suzanne DeMaine, European marketing manager for GOJO Europe, welcomes this yearly focus, but advises that the issue requires concerted and continuous efforts all year round.
When Clarissa Baldwin, chief executive of Dogs Trust, coined the phrase ‘a dog is for life, not just for Christmas’ back in 1978, she perfectly summarised the commitment and care that dogs deserve fromtheir owners in one simple slo- gan. Little did she know that its underlying ethos could be applied to countless wor- thy causes. Other high pro- file charities, such as Children in Need and Comic Relief, have yearly extrava- ganzas which domuch to raise awareness and funds, but the real work never stops, continuing long after the cameras are switched off, and the celebrities have gone home. The same can be said for
championing the hand hy- giene cause - although we rely less heavily on the sup- port of celebrities. Health- care associated infections (HAIs) affect hundreds of millions of people across the world every year, yetmany are preventable through good hand hygiene - clean- ing hands at the right times and in the right way. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been instrumen- tal in promoting best prac- tice in hand hygiene for many years, working to make infection prevention and control a priority in
healthcare, with clean hands as the basis. 5thMay is the annual cele-
bration of the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign - an event which focuses on the importance of improving patient safety and care by practising better hand hy- giene. Hospitals and health- care facilities across the globe showed their support for the campaign’s aims through numerous activities and initiatives, and GOJO was no exception.
Taking the hand hygiene pledge
As part of its activities to support theWHO’s SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign GOJO produced, in collaboration with theWHO, a special pledge card in a number of languages, which
is being distributed to infec- tion control teams across Europe. As of 1May 2013, theWHO
reported that a total of 15,782 hospitals and healthcare fa- cilities in 168 countries had registered their commitment to hand hygiene as part of the global campaign - and GOJO hopes that its pledge card will encourage even more to sign up during the year and to keep awareness levels high for infection con- trol teams, link nurses and all healthcare workers. The card shows theWHO fivemo- ments for hand hygiene on one side, and a link to the WHO website, where health- care workers can register their involvement and com- mitment to the initiative, on the reverse. It is completely portable, being the size of a credit card, so it acts as a constant reminder for busy healthcare workers to prac- tise good hand hygiene at all times. Designed to be easy to un-
derstand and learn, logical and applicable in a wide range of settings, the five moments for hand hygiene are: • Before patient contact. • Before an aseptic task. • After bodily fluid exposure risk. • After patient contact. • After contact with patient surroundings. Washing hands with liquid
or foamsoap and water is advised between significant events, and always when the hands are visibly soiled. GOJO also supports the WHO’sMultimodal Hand Hy- giene Improvement Strategy, which aims to improve hand hygiene compliance by staff that work with patients in healthcare settings by creat- ing a ‘culture of safety’ through training and educa- tion,making hygienic hand
20 l C&M l JUNE 2013 l
www.cleaninghub.net
rubs available at the point of care, and enhanced observa- tion and feedback of and fromhealthcare workers.
The crucial role of training and support
HAIs can be costly in both monetary and personal terms. The effects of out- breaks are wide-ranging - fromthe personal discomfort of those who contract viruses, to the disruption caused to normal services such as the enforced closure of hospital wards, and the additional financial burden of drafting in extra staff to cover for sick colleagues. Hospitals are therefore well
aware of the benefits of pro- moting good hand hygiene practice to staff and visitors. However, with pressures mounting around rapidly di- minishing budgets, and scrutiny increasing when it comes to the achievement of standards and targets, this can sometimes seemlike a huge challenge. GOJO has worked closely with acute healthcare facilities over the years to understand the bar- riers to hand hygiene compli- ance and the needs of healthcare workers, and this commitment to improving patient safety and care in- spired us to launch our Clean Hands Programme.
The programme is a total
solution for healthcare which includes not only training and ongoing sup- port, but also access to the most effective products and formulations, research and input fromkey opinion lead- ers, and advice on increas- ing andmonitoring compliance. Claire Kil- patrick - an independent consultant/patient safety ex- pert, and Julie Storr - presi- dent of the Infection Prevention Society andWHO projectmanager, will help to deliver bespoke training for a limited period through 2013 as part of this initiative. HAIs pose a real threat to
the physicalwelfare of pa- tients and staff,with the added negative effect on hospital budgets that have to dealwith the consequences of an outbreak, and the sub- sequentwork needed to re- turn things to normal. However, advances in formu- lations and delivery systems, combinedwith a global com- mitment to improve hand hy- giene, ensure that significant progresswill bemade in the fight to reduce risks. Formore information on GOJO’s hand hygiene solutions call 01908 588444, email
info@gojo.co.uk or visit
www.gojo.com/ united-kingdom.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40