Hand hygiene feedback impacts compliance

Health care-acquired infections are one of the top causes of mortality in the United States (Stone, 2009; Scott, 2009). Hand hygiene (HH) can reduce the incidence of such infections. Adherence to HH practices remains challenging for health care workers (World Health Organization, 2014). This investigation compared results of private and public HH feedback at the team and individual level.

A quality improvement study was conducted in 2 units utilizing HH radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology. Each unit was assigned either private or public feedback mechanisms. The study was divided into 3 phases; baseline, team, and individual. Time series analysis compared HH compliance by health care workers' role and feedback mechanisms.

Individual HH compliance were the highest in both groups. The private group compliance was 63.3% (P ≤ .0001) and the public group compliance was 55.4% (P = .0001). During the team feedback phase, HH compliance decreased in the private group to 42.79% (P = .006); however, compliance increased in the public feedback group to 42.5% (P = .2661). The physician role in the private group decreased by 12% (P = .1804) during the individual phase.

HH data provided at the individual level and posted publicly could improve HH compliance. Use of RFID measurement technology can provide organizations with tools to measure HH compliance.