“Gloves Off”, clean hands, safe for all. An education program for improving hand hygiene and reducing healthcare waste.

“Gloves Off”, clean hands, safe for all. An education program for improving hand hygiene and reducing healthcare waste.

Patricia Knight¹, Sarah Browning¹, Tina Wilkie², Sally Munnoch¹, Stan Chen¹, Amy Bernotas<sup>3

1</sup>John Hunter Hospital, Rankin Park, NSW, Australia
²Allied Health Net Zero Lead, Climate Risk & Net Zero Unit St Leonards, NSW, Australia
³HNELHD Infrastructure and facility planning, Rankin Park, NSW, Australia

Background
The use of non-sterile gloves (NSG) is an integral component of hand hygiene (HH) and standard precautions (SP) when there is a risk of body fluid exposure. However, observational data indicates that NSG are often over used, resulting in reduced HH compliance and increased risk of cross contamination. An estimated 30 million gloves are used across our district annually, resulting in 100 tonnes of waste. From 2014-2019, an education campaign in a United Kingdom hospital achieved a ‘30% reduction in glove use. Expanding on this concept, our quality improvement program ”Gloves Off, clean hands, safe Patients” aims to improve hand hygiene compliance, increase confidence in performing safe risk assessments, and reduce waste.

Methods
An education intervention will be adapted targeting all staff cadres on two surgical wards in a tertiary Australian hospital. Formal and informal education sessions will be led by Infection Control Professionals and appointed ward champions, addressing the 5 moments of hand hygiene and risk assessments for NSG use. Themed posters, a catchy jingle and a rap song will be used to promote the project throughout the eight week intervention period commencing 1 July. Hand hygiene audit results, NSG procurement and staff knowledge/attitudes will be compared statistically pre and post intervention.

Results
Post-intervention data analysis results will be available following project conclusion, September 2023.

Conclusion
It is anticipated that the project will provide a roadmap for rollout across the facility and district, improving hand hygiene compliance and reducing our carbon footprint.

Biography

Patricia Knight is a passionate Clinical Nurse Consultant in Infection Prevention (IP) at the John Hunter Hospital/John Hunter Childrens Hospital in Newcastle NSW with undergraduate and post graduate qualifications in Nursing. Having extensive experience in paediatrics she found her passion was to be an infection preventionist. A commitment and interest in educating other professionals Patricia is motived to find ways to ensure that infection prevention remains relevant and exploring opportunities for Innovation and creating sustainability in this important discipline.