Auditing hand hygiene practice.
Hand hygiene is regarded as the most effective way of preventing healthcare-associated infections. Thus hand hygiene audits are frequently undertaken by infection prevention and control teams. Although apparently straightforward, hand hygiene audit requires careful planning and conduct. Healthcare professionals need to understand the principles that underpin effective hand hygiene audit to improve their own practice and help patients, carers and the public to interpret the findings.
Gould
Dinah
D
School of Community and Health Studies, City University, London. d.gould@city.ac.uk
D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D003625:Data Collection / Q000941:ethics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D015987:Effect Modifier, Epidemiologic; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006235:Hand Disinfection / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D009731:Nursing Audit / Q000941:ethics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration; D006113:United Kingdom