Low hand hygiene compliance among Gisenyi District Hospital Clinical staff

Abstract

Background: Hospital-acquired Infections (HAI) represent an important cause of morbidity and mortality in hospitals. HAIs increase the length of stay, and are associated with substantial risk of mortality. Good hand hygiene compliance reduces HAI rates and cross-transmission of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens. There is low hand hygiene compliance among clinical staff of Gisenyi Hospital. Objective: To increase hand hygiene compliance among clinical staff of Gisenyi District Hospital from 37.5% to 51% from December 2016 to March 2017 Root cause: The main root cause identified include: Lack of knowledge regarding hand hygiene practice and unavailability of hand hygiene supplies. Design: A pre and post interventional study design was used during this project. Intervention: Educating Clinical staff on Hand hygiene practice trough training, Increasing the Availability and accessibility of soap, paper towels and Availability and providing pocket-sized ABHR bottles for Clinical staff with Alcohol-based hand rub. Results: Before intervention data showed that the overall hand hygiene compliance was 37.5% while post-intervention showed that the compliance reached 53.7 %, resulting in an improvement change of 16.2% (p<0.001). Conclusion: Health care workers need to protect themselves, protect co-workers, patients and ensure the wellbeing of patients. It has long been recognized that hand hygiene is the most effective way to prevent the spread of infection, thereby ensuring patient safety. Pres and post intervention study design have been used in this project. The identified priority solutions/strategies to improve hand hygiene compliance among Gisenyi District Hospital clinical staff were: Educating clinical staff on Hand hygiene practice. Increase the Availability and accessibility of soap, paper towels Availability and providing pocket-sized ABHR bottles to clinical staff with Alcohol-based hand rub.