Save Lives: Clean Your Hands: a WHO patient safety initiative for 2009

On 5 May 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) will launch a major global initiative to motivate hospitals and healthcare organizations around the world to sign up and show their support for hand hygiene improvement, as a critical patient safety activity that saves lives. Building on the successful impact of the WHO First Global Patient Safety Challenge, which has resulted in 116 WHO member states making a political commitment to tackle healthcare-associated infection, Save Lives: Clean Your Hands aims to transform these country pledges into real action at the point of care. A revised and updated version of the WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care will be officially launched on 5 May, together with a hand hygiene improvement toolkit. To accompany the toolkit, a new user-friendly self-assessment framework for healthcare facilities is being developed. The Save Lives: Clean Your Hands' vision for 2020 is to encourage an increasing number of national-level programmes or campaigns in hand hygiene in healthcare. The aim is to promote awareness of the importance of hand hygiene and to stimulate interest not only among healthcare professionals but, importantly, among patients as well.