Improving Hand Hygiene Compliance for Healthcare Workers

Maintaining hand hygiene among healthcare workers is widely accepted as one of the most cost effective means of reducing patients’ healthcare-associated infections, which are one contributing factor to the estimated 100,000 healthcare-related deaths in the United States each year. Nevertheless, rates of compliance with hand hygiene guidelines are below 50% in most healthcare settings. This pilot aimed to provide a better understanding of the factors that influence healthcare professionals’ hand hygiene compliance. This pilot was conducted in collaboration with Proventix, a company that uses radio frequency identification technology to monitor individual caregivers’ hand hygiene compliance in hospitals.