ISSUE: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Health Care Settings recommends monitoring adherence to hand hygiene and providing feedback to staff. We wanted to do this and determine accurate baseline compliance rates for all direct patient care areas but lacked infection control (IC) staffing to accomplish this goal. We also feared that results would be positively skewed if IC staff did the monitors. PROJECT: We utilized a high school student seeking healthcare-related work experience to conduct hand hygiene monitors in all direct patient care areas.
ISSUE: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Health Care Settings recommends monitoring adherence to hand hygiene and providing feedback to staff. We wanted to do this and determine accurate baseline compliance rates for all direct patient care areas but lacked infection control (IC) staffing to accomplish this goal. We also feared that results would be positively skewed if IC staff did the monitors. PROJECT: We utilized a high school student seeking healthcare-related work experience to conduct hand hygiene monitors in all direct patient care areas.