title: The 'My five moments for hand hygiene' concept for the overcrowded setting in resource-limited healthcare systems.
abstract: Hand hygiene is a core activity of patient safety for the prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). To standardize hand hygiene practices globally the World Health Organization (WHO) released Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care and introduced the 'My five moments for hand hygiene' concept to define indications for hand hygiene rooted in an evidence-based model for transmission of micro-organisms by healthcare workers' (HCWs) hands. Central to the concept is the division of the healthcare environment into two geographical care zones, the patient zone and the healthcare zone, that requires the HCW to comply with specific hand hygiene moments. In resource-limited, overcrowded healthcare settings inadequate or no spatial separation between beds occurs frequently. These conditions challenge the HCW's ability to visualize and delineate patient zones. The 'My five moments for hand hygiene' concept has been adapted for these conditions with the aim of assisting hand hygiene educators, auditors, and HCWs to minimize ambiguity regarding shared patient zones and achieve the ultimate goal set by the WHO Guidelines--the reduction of infectious risks.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Medicine, UNSW, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Salmon
authors.affiliation: Infection Control Program and WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety, University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pittet
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Diseases and Infection Control, University and University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sax
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Medicine, UNSW, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: m.mclaws@unsw.edu.au.
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: McLaws
mesh_terms: D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control; D003441:Crowding; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D018562:Disease Transmission, Infectious / Q000517:prevention & control; D063373:Hand Hygiene / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods*; D061214:Patient Safety
keywords: Alcohol-based hand rub; Hand hygiene; Healthcare workers; Healthcare-associated infections; My five moments for hand hygiene; Overcrowding; Patient zone