title: Just clean your hands: measuring the effect of a patient safety initiative on driving transformational change in a health care system.
abstract: In 2007, the Ontario government introduced the Just Clean Your Hands program across all provincial hospitals. The goal of this patient safety initiative was to improve hand hygiene practices among health care providers through workplace culture change. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 729 nurses employed at a single large community-based hospital from April to July 2011. Of the 223 nurses who responded to the questionnaire, 153 had completed the program (exposed group). By using the other 70 nurses as a contemporaneous control group (nonexposed), this study demonstrates that the Just Clean Your Hands program contributed to improved hand hygiene practices, but we were unable to demonstrate positive changes in patient safety culture.
authors.affiliation: Department of Critical Care Medicine, Royal Victoria Hospital, Barrie, ON, Canada. Electronic address: gdidiodato@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Giulio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Didiodato
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D005260:Female; D006235:Hand Disinfection / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009726:Nurses; D009864:Ontario; D061214:Patient Safety; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Hand hygiene compliance; Hospital-acquired infection; Nursing care; Patient safety initiative; Safety culture; Transformational change