Mrs. Michelle Bolte1, Mr. Justin Fox2, Mr. Christopher Mann3
1HNE Tamworth Hospital, Tamworth, Australia, 2HNE Tamworth Rural Referral Hospital, Tamworth, Australia, 3HNE Tamworth Rural Referral Hospital, Tamworth, Australia
Biography:
Clinical Nurse Consultant, Infection Prevention at Tamworth Rural Referral Hospital for the last 8.5 years.
Interest in research and quality improvement programs.
Abstract:
Hand hygiene research and auditing programs at healthcare facilities has mainly targeted physicians and nurses. Nurses traditionally perform the Hand hygiene audits and have the highest recorded compliance.
Hand Hygiene audits over the past three years in a Rural Hospital has shown the compliance rate for the Wardsman being below 60%. This was consistently below benchmark levels of 85%. This project aimed to increase the hand hygiene compliance for wardsman to 85% within 12 months.
A review was performed by survey on the Wardsman team that included infection prevention knowledge and frequency of education given. A mixed response was recorded with results revealing that there were some gaps with knowledge and inconsistent training opportunities offered. Education offered for hand hygiene was on a computer-based learning model every 5 years and there was no feedback offered on audit results. A wardsman was trained as an Infection Prevention representative with his role encompassing hand hygiene auditing and education. He meets once a month with the hospital’s infection prevention link nurse team to attend education sessions and performs hand hygiene audits for his team. An Infection Prevention Education program was developed for wardsman.
The wardsman’s’ Hand hygiene Compliance rate has increased from 48% to 77% within the last 6 months. There have been more auditing moments recorded and feedback is given in real time as they are audited by the Wardsman Infection Prevention representative. Having an Infection prevention representative resource within the team has enabled sustainable and timely education to be delivered.