Implementation of a Sustainable Multidisciplinary Hand Hygiene Improvement Campaign

Abstract

Background Hand hygiene is the best method to prevent the spread of infection. Healthcare facility historical hand hygiene data indicated compliance to be at 76.4% among inpatient and outpatient departments. Facility describes how development and adopting a culture change can increase hand hygiene compliance and improvement around patient safety. Methods Our hand hygiene campaign stemmed from an Infection Prevention and Control Liaisons Committee and expanded to include many multidisciplinary partners. Through literature review, brainstorming sessions, and all staff survey, an understanding of the current state and desired interventions were developed. Subcommittees lead the various intervention efforts including revision of the annual education module, improved audit methods, tools, analysis, and reports, developing a campaign specific code word “Sanitize Now and Prevent” or “SNAP,” peer feedback reminders, and peer nominated awards. Partnerships with marketing lead to a media campaign using a superhero theme in posters, theme song, videos, and infographics to reinforce campaign messaging and promote best practice. Many staff demonstrated commitment to best practice through signing a hand hygiene pledge. A hand hygiene focused topic was added to employee wellness platform. During the COVID pandemic, a mindfulness hand hygiene practice resource and video were created and shared to continue promoting best practice. Results Observation data demonstrated increasing compliance over time with improvement to 92.6%. Peers received recognition each quarter and interventions increased peer positive role modeling. Conclusions Engagement with and ongoing participation by a multidisciplinary team has led to increased accountability and ownership of practice and improved and sustained hand hygiene performance. Hand hygiene is the best method to prevent the spread of infection. Healthcare facility historical hand hygiene data indicated compliance to be at 76.4% among inpatient and outpatient departments. Facility describes how development and adopting a culture change can increase hand hygiene compliance and improvement around patient safety. Our hand hygiene campaign stemmed from an Infection Prevention and Control Liaisons Committee and expanded to include many multidisciplinary partners. Through literature review, brainstorming sessions, and all staff survey, an understanding of the current state and desired interventions were developed. Subcommittees lead the various intervention efforts including revision of the annual education module, improved audit methods, tools, analysis, and reports, developing a campaign specific code word “Sanitize Now and Prevent” or “SNAP,” peer feedback reminders, and peer nominated awards. Partnerships with marketing lead to a media campaign using a superhero theme in posters, theme song, videos, and infographics to reinforce campaign messaging and promote best practice. Many staff demonstrated commitment to best practice through signing a hand hygiene pledge. A hand hygiene focused topic was added to employee wellness platform. During the COVID pandemic, a mindfulness hand hygiene practice resource and video were created and shared to continue promoting best practice. Observation data demonstrated increasing compliance over time with improvement to 92.6%. Peers received recognition each quarter and interventions increased peer positive role modeling. Engagement with and ongoing participation by a multidisciplinary team has led to increased accountability and ownership of practice and improved and sustained hand hygiene performance.