Page 106
INFECTION PREVENTION
John Di Capua, MD
Video's Starring Role in Better Hand Hygiene
How diligent monitoring improved our hand-washing compliance.
If hand hygiene compliance at your facility isn't what it should be — and chances are, it isn't — read on. By taking video monitoring to the next level, we've seen hand-washing rates shoot up from less than 10% to around 90%. We realized that it's one thing to have cameras installed in your facility — people are used to that. It's a whole new ball game when you have people actually monitor and report on what happens (and what doesn't) in your facility. It might sound exorbitant, but it's paying off, in improved hand hygiene and in several other ways.
STOP THERE The ability to call time out in the OR was an important first step. Remote video auditing gives the practice real teeth.
Improved hygiene
The breakthrough happened when one of our partners, North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., was having trouble with hand hygiene compliance, despite concerted efforts. When they had cameras installed throughout the ICU to record when staff washed their hands, they assumed compliance would be around 60%. Shockingly, during a 16-week preliminary period in which staff were filmed but not given results, rates were actually less than 10%. Lesson learned: Simply installing cameras didn't change behaviors.
But after we started monitoring and collecting data, and then
