title: Monitoring hand hygiene: meaningless, harmful, or helpful?
abstract: Whereas monitoring adherence to hand hygiene (HH) guidelines is standard practice in most acute care facilities, practice improvement has been slow. In hospitals primarily concerned with reputation, incentives to report high HH rates may create negative consequences. Practice change will require increased staff engagement and more sustainable methods to monitor HH and provide feedback.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, and Professor of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA. Ell23@columbia.edu
authors.forename: Elaine
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Larson
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control*; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006235:Hand Disinfection / Q000379:methods*; D063373:Hand Hygiene / Q000379:methods*; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods*; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011786:Quality Control