More on hand hygiene.....
The Joint Commission has released a 200-page monograph on measuring hand hygiene adherence. I was given the opportunity to review and comment on this document prior to publication, and I highly recommend it as a comprehensive resource—not just about adherence measurement, but about hand hygiene campaigns in general. The authors address but generally sidestep one question we’ve already discussed on this blog: what should be the “goal” of our hand hygiene campaigns? What is achievable? The closest they come to answering that question comes on page 118: “the ultimate goal should be to demonstrate sustained improvement over time”.
Given the lack of reproducibility and comparability of adherence measurements at different healthcare facilities, this seems like an eminently reasonable statement. Let’s hope all JCAHO surveyors find the time to read this monograph and arrive at our hospitals armed with a genuine understanding of the complexity of this issue.
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