With Money at Risk, Hospitals Push Staff to Wash Hands

[AussieNeil]

Interesting recent New York Times article on what some NY hospitals are doing to improve staff handwashing compliance:

nytimes.com/2013/05/29/nyre...

"Studies have shown that without encouragement, hospital workers wash their hands as little as 30 percent of the time that they interact with patients."

The compliance rates for nearly 700 public and private Australian hospitals measured early this year, showed an average compliance rate of 77%. There was little difference in the results between public and private hospitals:

hha.org.au/LatestNationalDa...

Neil

[ygtgo]

There should also be a dress code - Hospital workers " uniforms " should NOT be worn or taken outside of the hospital, they should be cleaned, and returned via a hospital laundry system, and people who work in, or visit patient wards should NOT be wearing the footwear that they have been using to travel to the hospital. Whether a change of footwear or a procedure to clean the shoes that you are wearing is debatable, what is fact is, if there is an outbreak of infection with farm animals, standard practice is to disinfect all footwear and vehicle tyres, up to a point of banning access to farmland for the public ...... Maybe we should let the farmers take care of infections in hospitals, and pay them by results .....

[keepfit123 in reply to ygtgo]

Here in u.k at my local hospital I see hospital workers regularly leaving still in their uniforms and using public transport. When i worked at a local brewery everybody entering had to use the footbaths containg formaldehyde to disinfect their shoes.

Why not something similar in hospitals?