Highlights
- •This article describes a combination of digital tools to support multimodal hand hygiene campaigns.
- •A common data interchange format was developed for 3 audit and training tools in hand hygiene.
- •The data from the 3 tools were combined to calculate a combined risk score for an active clinical setting.
- •The combined risk score was feedback to staff, patients, and visitors and was positively received.
Background
Digital tools for hand hygiene do not share data, limiting their potential to support
multimodal programs. The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom, worked with
GOJO (in the United States), MEG (in Ireland), and SureWash (in Ireland) to integrate
their systems and pilot their combined use in a clinical setting.
Methods
A 28-bed medical oncology unit piloted the system for 5 weeks. Live data from the
tools were combined to create a novel combined risk status metric that was displayed
publicly and via a management Web site.
Results
The combined risk status reduced over the pilot period. However, larger and longer
duration studies are required to reach statistical significance. Staff and especially
patient reaction was positive in that 70% of the hand hygiene training events were
by patients. The digital tools did not negatively impact clinical workflow and received
positive engagement from staff and patients. The combined risk status did not change
significantly over the short pilot period because there was also no specific hand
hygiene improvement campaign underway at the time of the pilot study.
Conclusions
The results indicate that integrated digital tools can provide both rich data and
novel tools that both measure impact and provide feedback to support the implementation
of multimodal hand hygiene campaigns, reducing the need for significant additional
personnel resources.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 24, 2017
Footnotes
Author contributions: G.L., J.A., J.C., W.G., and G.T. worked on the study protocol. GOJO, MEG Support Tools and SureWash staff performed the technical implementation. G.T., W.G., and J.C. conducted data collection. G.L. worked on the data analysis. G.L., G.T., W.G., and J.C. worked paper drafts.
Conflicts of interest: None to report.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
