Mrs. Kaye Bellis1
1Alfred Health, Prahran, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
I have been in IP for over 24 years and my main focus has always been HH and education. I am still passionate and believe in correct and timely HH.
Having worked across many healthcare facilities I understand the ongoing challenges with HH but believe that we are slowly gaining ground.
I worked with HH Victoria and HHA in their formative years and travelled around Australia as an educator.
My current role is to engage all HCWs to promote, educate, listen, learn and engage with HH and IP.
Abstract:
Background
Hand hygiene (HH) is an essential part of our daily activities. To identify opportunities to improve knowledge, understanding and practices regarding HH we developed surveys to determine how nurse managers (NMs), HH auditors and patients viewed HH practices in our institution.
Method
NM and HH auditors were emailed an invitation to complete an anonymous online survey. Concurrently, patients on selected wards were invited to voluntarily participate in a brief, anonymous paper-based survey.
Results
24 NM, 27 auditors across the organisation and 57 patients from 9 sampled wards responded.
93% (n=53) patients thought their HCW was excellent or fairly good at performing hand hygiene.
71 % (n=17) NMs said they allocated dedicated time to their HH auditors to conduct auditing and 30% (n=8) of auditors reported being allocated time to feedback results.
58% (n=14) of NMs reported their ward conducted feedback sessions.
When asked if patients are informed of the importance of HH, 17% (n=4) NMs and 41% (n=11) auditors said they did, whilst 19% (n=10) of patients said they received this information.
70 % (n=7) patients would not ask HCWs to perform HH due to fear of being disrespectful.
Conclusion:
Results are fed back to individual wards. We encourage and work with wards to:
– understand their results
– make practical changes to workflows, product placement and promotions
– promote greater consumer involvement in their care to improve patient outcomes
Results are also reported to the Infection Prevention Committee to address practical changes at facility and community level.