A latest study by researchers at GOJO Industries, recently published within the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (ICHE), demonstrates healthcare facilities that actively partner with their automated hand hygiene monitoring system (AHHMS) vendor are in a position to achieve greater improvement in hand hygiene performance – a backbone of infection control programs.

“With data from 58 units in 10 hospitals throughout North America – 243 million hand hygiene opportunities – this study makes a very important contribution to understanding hand hygiene performance-rate improvement efforts,” said Jim Arbogast, Ph.D., the lead creator of the study and Vice President of Hygiene Sciences and Public Health Advancements at GOJO Industries. “The evidence is obvious that clinician-based support from their AHHMS vendor is a critical component that hospitals cannot overlook of their hand hygiene performance efforts. Healthcare facilities shouldn’t install an AHHMS and ignore it.”

The study, The impact of automated hand hygiene monitoring with and without complementary improvement strategies on performance rates, was published online on August 22 in ICHE. Hand hygiene performance rates were estimated using the PURELL Smartlink® Activity Monitoring System and showed greater sustained increases in hand hygiene performance when the hospital worked in collaboration with the seller to implement the system and initiate complementary improvement interventions. Major findings of the study include:

• AHHMS together with clinician-based vendor support and hospital-led unit-based initiatives (Vendor + Hospital group) led to statistically significant improvements in hand hygiene performance compared with the Vendor-only, Hospital-only, or AHHMS-alone groups (>46% increase; P < 0.006).
• Hospital units within the Vendor-plus-Hospital group achieved a 76% increase in hand hygiene performance in comparison with the Vendor-only group (46.9/26.7=1.76), a 46% increase in comparison with the Hospital-only group (46.9/32.1=1.46), and a 48% increase over the AHHMS-alone group (46.9/31.7=1.48).

The usage of AHHMS has been growing over the past decade as hospitals increasingly recognize it as a priceless tool within the fight to enhance healthcare employee hand hygiene. It has been shown to supply substantially more quantitative data than direct observations and without observer bias. It provides a real-time view for infection control staff to see how well their hand hygiene performance improvement strategies are working – and if they are not, they’ll quickly adjust course.”

Lori Moore, MPH, BSN, RN, CPPS, Co-Creator, Clinical Educator, GOJO Industries

“This multi-year study of multiple healthcare facilities is crucial for understanding hand hygiene because, unlike single facility studies, it directly assesses how reproducible hand hygiene rates are. I’m unaware of some other multi-facility trial of this size within the literature,” said co-author Albert Parker, biostatistician on the Center for Biofilm Engineering and research professor, Montana State University.

“As hospitals navigate out of the acute phase of the pandemic, many are refocusing on basic, yet essential, measures like hand hygiene,” said co-author Megan DiGiorgio, MSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, Senior Clinical Manager, GOJO Industries. “Because our study utilized modeled data, hospitals considering AHHMS could have an idea of what they’ll expect in their very own facilities when employing AHHMS with complementary strategies.”

Source:

Journal reference:

Arbogast, J.W., et al. (2022) The impact of automated hand hygiene monitoring with and without complementary improvement strategies on performance rates. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. doi.org/10.1017/ice.2022.141.