title: Compliance with hand hygiene: reference data from the national hand hygiene campaign in Germany.
abstract: Hand hygiene is a key measure to prevent healthcare-associated infection. To promote hand hygiene nationally the German campaign 'Aktion Saubere Hände' was launched in January 2008, based on the World Health Organization's 'Clean Care is Safer Care' initiative. We report the first results from a full year of data collection on hand hygiene compliance recorded with the help of a renewed observation tool. Data were based on submissions from 109 participating hospitals collected from 576 wards between January 1st and December 31st, 2014. The overall median compliance was 73%, ranging from 55% (10th percentile) to 89% (90th percentile). The results demonstrated only small differences between adult and non-adult intensive care units (ICUs) with neonatal ICUs and paediatric non-ICUs maintaining higher compliance than adult care units. Performance among nurses was better than physicians, and overall rates of hand hygiene performance were significantly higher after patient contact than before.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wetzker
authors.affiliation: Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bunte-Schönberger
authors.affiliation: Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Walter
authors.affiliation: Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pilarski
authors.affiliation: Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: petra.gastmeier@charite.de.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gastmeier
authors.affiliation: Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Ch
authors.initials: Ch
authors.lastname: Reichardt
mesh_terms: D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005858:Germany; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D063373:Hand Hygiene / Q000379:methods*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans
keywords: Benchmarking; Compliance; Hand hygiene; National campaign; Observational study