Watching Them Wash: Description of a Hand Hygiene Observation Program

Abstract

Extracted: Our program consists of a team of roving observers, typically college and graduate students, who are paid an hourly wage. Daily assignments are made; the assignment may be a randomly chosen hospital unit or a unit specifically chosen because of a recent increase in infection or recent findings of poor hand hygiene compliance. Each observer was trained by the same nurse epidemiologist to minimize interobserver variability, and the unit of observation was compliance with hand hygiene on room entry and exit. We reviewed data from a recent 1‐year period (October 2007 through September 2008) gathered in our hand hygiene observation program, including information on overall compliance rates for healthcare providers stratified by specialty site and job classification. We also reviewed data on overall costs of the program for the same period.