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Should Alcohol-Based Handrub Use Be Customized to Healthcare Workers’ Hand Size?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2015

Fernando Bellissimo-Rodrigues
Affiliation:
Infection Control Programme and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety (Infection Control & Improving Practices), University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland Social Medicine Department, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil
Hervé Soule
Affiliation:
Infection Control Programme and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety (Infection Control & Improving Practices), University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland
Angèle Gayet-Ageron
Affiliation:
Infection Control Programme and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety (Infection Control & Improving Practices), University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland
Yves Martin
Affiliation:
Infection Control Programme and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety (Infection Control & Improving Practices), University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland
Didier Pittet*
Affiliation:
Infection Control Programme and World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety (Infection Control & Improving Practices), University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland
*
Address correspondence to Didier Pittet, MD, MS, Infection Control Programme and WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety, University of Geneva Hospitals, 4 Rue, Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil, 1205, Geneva, Switzerland (didier.pittet@hcuge.ch).

Abstract

We evaluated whether the volume of alcohol-based handrub used by healthcare workers affects the residual bacterial concentration on their hands according to hand size. Bacterial reduction was significantly lower for large hands compared with small hands, which suggests a need for customizing the volume of alcohol-based handrub for hand hygiene.

Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2016;37(2):219–221

Type
Concise Communications
Copyright
© 2015 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved 

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Footnotes

Presented in part: Third International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control; Geneva, Switzerland; June 18, 2015 (Abstracts 302 and 303).

References

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