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New Strategies to Monitor Healthcare Workers’ Hand Hygiene Compliance

  • New Technologies and Advances in Infection Prevention (AR Marra, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Treatment Options in Infectious Diseases Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Opinion statement

Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) are costly and deadly. These infections are also preventable up to 75% of the time. Arguably, the most basic strategy for prevention of HAIs is proper hand hygiene (HH). Despite the relative ease and simplicity of performing HH compared to other infection prevention interventions, compliance rates in hospitals worldwide remain under 50%. Evaluation, monitoring, and feedback are key components of HH prevention. This article will review strengths and weaknesses of current methods to monitor and improve HH compliance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maryland School of Medicine, 685 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Lisa Pineles, Gwen Robinson & Daniel J. Morgan

  2. VA Maryland Healthcare System, Baltimore, USA

    Daniel J. Morgan

Authors
  1. Lisa Pineles
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  2. Gwen Robinson
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  3. Daniel J. Morgan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Pineles.

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Conflict of Interest

Dr. Daniel J. Morgan reports grants from CDC, NIH, and AHRQ; merit award for infection control work from VA HSRD; travel expenses paid from IDSA, ASM, Lown, and SHEA to organize or present at national meetings; personal fees from 3M; and honoraria from Springer Inc., outside the submitted work. Lisa Pineles and Gwen Robinson declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on New Technologies and Advances in Infection Prevention

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Pineles, L., Robinson, G. & Morgan, D.J. New Strategies to Monitor Healthcare Workers’ Hand Hygiene Compliance. Curr Treat Options Infect Dis 9, 11–17 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40506-017-0111-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40506-017-0111-2

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