Mr Joshua Philp1
1The Sutherland Hospital, NSW Heath, Caringbah, Australia
Introduction
Sports are a common passion among many practitioners in the community and staff in any hospital. Their easy to understand penalty system lends itself to clear communication among staff, and personal investment and accountability for hand hygiene. We used sports methodology to engage practitioners with hand hygiene (T for teal, R for red, Y for yellow) and indicate how their compliance was over time. Auditing compliance before and after the implementation of the TRY program was carried out using the Australian hand hygiene program.
Methods
Auditing compliance before and after the implementation of the TRY program was carried out using the standard Australian hand hygiene program. This continuous audit study included 350 hand hygiene moments per auditing cycle, before and after the program commenced.
Results
Our compliance rates before implementation were 55% across healthcare workers, and increased to 82.2% after commencement of the program.
Conclusion
The program demonstrates clear and significant differences in hand hygiene compliance and presents a new method of engaging staff to improve compliance.
Biography:
With over 10 years working as a registered nurse, and two masters degrees (infection control and critical care) Joshua has extensive knowledge and passion for the field of IP&C. He is a clinical nurse consultant at the Sutherland Hospital and has spent the last 3 years in this role moving the hospital forward with his progressive and evidence based policies combining his extensive ICU experience into the field of IP&M to combine on-the-floor clinical expertise with up to date research data to produce policies that actually work for staff and patients.