Hand hygiene is recognised as the single most powerful action in reducing the spread of organisms and infections.
Residents of long term care facilities are, by their age and existing co- morbidities not only more likely to acquire infections, but also much more likely to develop serious complications from infections.
Norovirus, is recognised globally as the leading cause of viral gastroenteritis. The most common symptoms include 24-48 hours of vomiting and diarrhoea. These can cause serious dehydration and symptoms lasting up to a week in an elderly patient. Related mortality has been reported in many residential care settings.
Norovirus has become a huge challenge for the managers of nursing homes and residential care settings. It is notoriously difficult to control as one person’s contaminated hands can leave norovirus on numerous locations for others to touch and then become infected. One hand touching a door handle, a table, a locker, a chair, another resident or even a tap can infect 10s of others. Norovirus can survive for days on these surfaces continuing to infect anyone touching them.
A contaminated mouse and keyboard infected 29 students and staff in a school before the source was identified and disinfected.
Studies of more than 170 inpatient units in England have demonstrated that outbreak rates increased with the number of beds in a unit and were especially high in geriatric and general medical care units.
The costs of a norovirus outbreak in a nursing home can run to thousands of pounds per bed. Improving hand hygiene compliance will reduce outbreaks .. saving you substantial time, beds and money
Recognising these risks, New standards for residential care settings require “The person in charge, .. promotes healthy and safe working practices through the provision of information, training, supervision and monitoring of staff ......in Infection Control”
Hand Hygiene audits
Auditing of compliance with hand hygiene is a necessary quality initiative in every healthcare facility. Care homes and Nursing homes and long term care facilities are no exception.
Indeed with outbreaks of norovirus and Clostridioides difficile (formally known as Clostridium difficile, C. Diff.) and influenza occurring much too often, It is essential that hand hygiene is an integral part of the care provided in every healthcare facility – regardless of size, acuity or patient population.
Audit Tools for hand hygiene compliance
Hand hygiene audit tools ensure compliance with standards and provide a means of standardised auditing of hand hygiene compliance. They are however, time consuming to carry out and even more frustrating to enter results from paper based tools onto excel files in order to correlate data, work out results and generate reports.
Better hand hygiene compliance rates and improved environmental hygiene means lower rates of Healthcare associated infections, less outbreaks of Norovirus, C Diff and Influenza.
Hand Hygiene Saves Lives – Putting resources into improving hand hygiene will save lives, save time and it will save you money.
