profession
Video surveillance improves hand hygiene
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Dec. 19, 2011
A Big Brother-style approach to monitoring whether physicians, nurses and other health professionals wash their hands when they are supposed to is effective, according to a Nov. 21 Clinical Infectious Diseases study (link).
A 17-bed hospital intensive care unit in Manhasset, N.Y., had hand-hygiene compliance rates of 10% as measured by a remote video monitoring service in which recording began when sensors detected that a person entered the patient area. After the 16-week observation period, health professionals received feedback on their hand-hygiene compliance as observed by the service, and performance was displayed on electronic boards mounted in the ICU's hallways. With the feedback, hand-washing compliance improved to 82% in the subsequent 16 weeks and increased to 88% over 75 weeks, the study said.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/12/19/prbf1219.htm.
