Staci Reynolds, assistant professor, coauthored "How an interactive game improved hand hygiene adherence" for American Nurse, ANA's official journal, with Anna Southerland of Duke University Hospital.

Excerpt

Takeaways:

• Hand hygiene is the best way to prevent the spread of healthcare associated infections, but nurse and other healthcare provider adherence with hand hygiene practices continues to be a challenge.
• Using an interactive audit and feedback strategy via an innovative “splat” game helped improve hand hygiene adherence in this large academic medical center.

Hand hygiene is the best way to prevent the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) in hospitals. However, hand hygiene adherence among nurses and other healthcare providers is a challenge. Several types of hand hygiene campaigns have been implemented in organizations, including new signage, reminders, audits, and updated hand hygiene dispensers and locations. These interventions may yield short-term improvement, but to maintain improvement over time, hand hygiene practice must be engrained into a unit’s culture.

The hand hygiene compliance scores for nursing staff in the neuroscience stepdown unit at our large academic medical center was less than the hospital’s target of 90%. In response, a hand hygiene campaign, using an interactive “splat” game, was developed by a nurse and implemented by nursing staff.