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Control of Transmission of Infection in Hospitals Requires More than Clean Hands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Stephanie J. Dancer
Stephanie J. Dancer*
Affiliation:
Department of Microbiology, Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, Scotland
*
Department of Microbiology, Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride, Lanarkshire G75 8RG, Scotland (stephanie.dancer@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk)
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Abstract

The focus on hand hygiene appears timely, given the problems that we have with transmission of infection in our hospitals. Unfortunately, people do not always clean their hands when they should, and even if they do, there are other factors that contribute to the acquisition of infection. Nonadherence to hand hygiene is now being targeted by the introduction of more rigorous assessment in healthcare environments. “Zero tolerance” mandates are facilitating managerial pursuit of poor hand hygiene, with a variety of disciplinary outcomes. This article questions the priority afforded hand hygiene and its enforcement and asks whether we should reconsider additional infection control strategies rather than threaten staff over hand hygiene practices.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 31 , Issue 9 , September 2010 , pp. 958 - 960
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 2010

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