Hand Hygene

Medical experts, the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) agree that hand hygiene  is the single most important step health workers can take to prevent infection and transmission of problem germs in health care settings. In fact, when health care providers improve their hand hygiene, health care-associated infections are significantly reduced.

Many studies have shown that the bacteria that cause hospital-acquired infections are most frequently spread from one patient to another on the hands of healthcare workers

Since washing hands frequently with soap and water is inconvenient, time-consuming, and often causes skin irritation and dryness experts have suggested that hospitals, extended care facilities, and home health agencies develop new strategies for improving hand hygiene among healthcare workers.

We need to make it easier for you to clean your hands quickly, with a minimum of effort and skin irritation. One way to accomplish these goals is to clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub (a gel, rinse or foam).
 
More than 20 published studies have shown that alcohol-based hand rubs are much more effective than either plain soap or soap that kills germs in reducing the number of live bacteria on the hands of workers.

How are we doing?

Promoting good hand hygiene has been a priority at CVMC. Each nursing unit performs 10 hand hygiene observations every month. If we find that a health care provider forgets to perform hand hygiene a letter from the Infection Prevention and Control Committee is sent as a reminder. Other strategies used to improve hand hygiene performance is done through educational programs and reminders, monthly compliance reports and encouraging our patients to let us know when we didn’t perform hand hygiene.