Five medical societies collaborated to publish updated hand hygiene recommendations for preventing healthcare-associated infections through hand hygiene at acute care facilities, Wolters Kluwer reported March 13.
The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, Infectious Diseases Society of America, and Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, in collaboration with the American Hospital Association and The Joint Commission, published “SHEA/IDSA/APIC Practice recommendation: Strategies to prevent healthcare-associated infections through hand hygiene: 2022 update.”
Here are the seven recommendations, starting with the two new ones:
- Teach staff about the risk for self and environmental contamination with glove use, teach proper glove removal, and validate that staff can remove gloves in a way that prevents contamination. Staff should immediately perform hand hygiene after glove removal.
- Reduce the environmental contamination associated with sinks and their drains. Ensure sinks are constructed according to local administrative codes and that they are included in the facility’s infection control risk assessment. Avoid hot air hand dryers in patient care areas.
- Promote hand skin and fingernail health and prohibit fingernail polish and gel shellac for staff who scrub for surgical procedures.
- Select appropriate hand hygiene products with input from staff. Consider the manufacturer’s product-specific data when selecting alcohol-based hand sanitizers.
- Make hand hygiene products visible and place them within the staff workflow. For private rooms, provide one dispenser in the hallway and one in the patient room. For multi-patient bed areas, consider at a minimum one dispenser per two beds.
- Monitor hand hygiene adherence using different types of monitoring and evaluate its effectiveness.
- Enhance a culture of safety by providing timely and meaningful feedback.
