effective ways to prevent infection

Hand hygiene has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to prevent infection
and hospital acquired infections (HIAs). Even though numerous studies have proven this to be
true, hand hygiene compliance is still relatively low across all medical settings. A 2010
systematic review found that in the hospital environment, hand hygiene adherence averaged only
40% (Vander Weg et al., 2019). While many hand hygiene studies exist for hospital settings,
there are very few studies for outpatient settings. Studies completed in the outpatient setting
shown that hand hygiene compliance rates range from 8% to 63% (Hart, 2019). Compliance rates
also vary depending on the type of monitoring. Generally speaking, when an employee knows
they are being watched or audited, they generally perform better and have more compliant
behaviors. This compliance is known as the Hawthorne effect (Geileit et al., 2018). When
studying compliance rates, it is important to review the perceived barriers. Overall barriers are
perceived due to lack of education, limited knowledge of pathogen transmission, concerns for
skin integrity, simply forgetting to perform hand hygiene after exiting a patient room, and selfidentified lack of time (Hart, 2019). These barriers have historically led to non-compliance and
ultimately to increased incidence of patient infections. The Centers for Disease Control estimate
that each day 1 in every 25 patients acquire a hospital acquired infection (Hart, 2019). Hand
hygiene non-compliance has led to a loss of millions of human lives worldwide as well as the
heavy financial impact to organizations due to Medicare and other insurance refusing
reimbursement related to HAIs (Sadule-Rios & Aguilera, 2017). Recommendations to improve
hand hygiene compliance all involve staff education. Staff not only need to understand the risk of
HAIs, they also need to understand how to overcome perceived barriers. Some recommendations
to improve overall hand hygiene include visual cuing, auditing by peers and patients, applied
technologies to monitor compliance, and video monitoring (Geilleit et al., 2018). The purpose of
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shared via CourseHero.comthis proposed study is to examine the most effective tools to assist in outpatient hand hygiene
compliance. The study will examine if education of staff and recommend cueing techniques
increase the level of hand hygiene compliance compared to current state onboarding and