Use of the WHO hand hygiene self-assessment framework tool in Dutch hospitals

Introduction / objectives

Recently, the WHO First Global Patient Safety Challenge team launched its newest tool, the Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework, a validated tool to assess hand hygiene promotion and practices in health-care facilities (http://www.who.int/gpsc/country_work/hhsa_framework/en/index.html). Aim of the present study is to access the hand hygiene status-quo of Dutch hospitals.

Methods

A working party of members from the Dutch Society of Infection Control Practitioners and the Dutch Society for Medical Microbiology decided to use the WHO’s self-assessment as a tool to progress hand hygiene promotion in the Netherlands. The framework tool was transformed into an on-line tool (e-trinity, Belgium) that allows data collection and automatic feed-back to all participants. Clinical microbiologists and infection control practitioners were contacted with support of the professional societies.

Results

The survey is planned for the beginning of April 2011 in order to use the data for national hand hygiene promotion on the 5^th of May. The working party expects a 50% response rate, thus is aiming at data from at least 50 of the 100 hospitals of the country. Individual hospitals/participants receive their score automatically via the electronic system. Members of the working party will anonymously evaluate the combined national data.

Conclusion

The Dutch are part of a minority of countries that after signing the WHO pledge did not engage into a national campaign. In addition, a recent study showed that the compliance with the 5 moments of hand hygiene is one of the lowest internationally reported (19%). The results of the self-assessment framework tool should help to better advance future hand hygiene campaigns.

Disclosure of interest

None declared.