May The 5th Be With You - #SafeSurgicalHands

There are so many commemorative days, that I sometimes get them confused. We just missed Star Wars Day and today (May 5th) is even International Day of the Midwife, which seems appropriate if you understand the Semmelweis story - his control group was a maternity ward staffed by female midwives with one-fifth the mortality compared to the doctor/medical student ward.

Which brings us to a very important day in infection prevention - 5th of May - WHO Hand Hygiene Day! I can't do better than Professor Didier Pittet when talking about hand hygiene, so I've added his video above and provided his letter with important links for #SafeSurgicalHands below.  Thank you all for what you're doing to create a safer healthcare environment starting with clean hands.

Dear All,

I am pleased to invite you to celebrate the WHO Hand Hygiene Day in Healthcare on 5 May 2016.

The 2016 year campaign promotes #SafeSurgicalHands on Twitter and Instagram.

All WHO tools to participate are available at: www.tinyurl.com/WHOtool5May16

Post your photos/selfies at : www.cleanhandssavelives.org/safesurgicalhands/

Safe Hands in Surgery-WHO 2016 message together with colleagues surgeons: www.tinyurl.com/WHOadd2016

#SafeSurgicalHands Pictures' Wall (updated in real time): https://walls.io/SafeSurgicalHands

Additional educative videos are accessible at:

• Your WHO 5 moments for Hand Hygiene along the patient journey in surgery www.tinyurl.com/5momentsSurgery
• WHO surgical hand preparation technique www.tinyurl.com/SurgScrubTech
• For those who want to conduct a Hand Sanitizing Relay: http://tinyurl.com/HHRelay
• Any information at handhygienerelay@cleanhandssavelives.org
• Or see the best relays in 2015 : http://tinyurl.com/GlobalHandSanitizingRelay2015
• Or simply look at 10 years of Clean Care is Safer Care http://tinyurl.com/CleanHands10

I am looking forward to seeing you all participating.
Let’s improve hand hygiene, reduce infections, limit resistance and save lives.

With best wishes,
Professor Didier Pittet

Clean Hands Save Lives - and now there's a book to prove it!

As most of you know, 5 May is the WHO World Hand Hygiene Day. This year's campaign is called "SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign - ’No action today; no cure tomorrow – make the WHO 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene part of protecting your patients from resistant germs."

In honor of 5th of May and to further promote hand hygiene and the concept "Economy of Peace," French author Thierry Crouzet has authored a book describing the journey of Didier Pittet and WHO in promoting hand hygiene internationally. The book is available for purchase in print or epub and also for free in 6 languages (no Croatian?!). In addition, this group has created a new website/organization called CleanHandsSaveLives.org.

For hand hygiene fans, after you read the late Sherwin Nuland's story of Ignac Semmelweis, this could be next on your list.