Turning hand hygiene into a habit: the need is obvious

Excerpt

The positive impact of hand disinfection on the incidence of nosocomial infections has been demonstrated numerous times since Semmelweis published his famous study in the 19th century. Nevertheless, this topic comes up regularly during infection control committee meetings in hospitals all over the world. Experts throw up their hands in despair about poor compliance rates with the well-known indications for hand hygiene. The topic is studied through many approaches. More recently, attention has shifted to behavioral aspects and options to modify behavior in order to improve compliance, not just by a few percentage points, but rather by a larger leap. In this issue of infection, Mathai et al. [1] provide a review on ways to educate healthcare workers on the topic of optimal hand hygiene practice. Some of the authors are responsible for the World Health Organization (WHO) program called the “First Global Patient Safety Challenge”. The key point of this thorough review is that formal education programs are not sufficient by themselves to guarantee better adherence to hand hygiene protocols. The authors make clear that it is necessary to work on this from different angles, including working on facility infrastructure and supplies, as well as on aspects that may be particular to individual institutions. …