Patient hand hygiene in a residential aged care facility: a best practice implementation project

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Infection Prevention and Control
• Aged Care Medicine

Background:

• Patient hand hygiene is vital for preventing healthcare-associated infections in residential aged care facilities.
• Despite awareness, patient hand hygiene is often not a deliberate practice among residents.

Purpose of the Study:

• To promote evidence-based patient hand hygiene practices within a residential aged care setting.
• To identify and overcome barriers to optimal patient hand hygiene adherence.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the JBI Evidence Implementation Framework with six best practice audit criteria.
• Conducted baseline audits via observations, staff surveys, and electronic health record reviews.
• Identified barriers and implemented targeted strategies, followed by post-implementation audits.

Main Results:

• Baseline compliance with best practices was 64%.
• Identified barriers included staff knowledge gaps, limited product availability, patient dependency, and documentation issues.
• Post-implementation, compliance increased by 12% to 76% after implementing educational initiatives, improving product access, and standardizing documentation.

Conclusions:

• Evidence implementation successfully improved patient hand hygiene adherence in aged care.
• Sustaining improvements requires ongoing education and integration into staff training and competency programs.