RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Despite the importance of hand hygiene in the health care setting, there are no studies evaluating hand hygiene compliance at hospital entrances. METHODS: The study was prospectively performed over a 33-week period from March 30, 2014-November 15, 2014, to evaluate hand hygiene compliance in 2 hospital reception areas. We compared electronic handwash counters with the application of radiofrequency identification (GOJO SMARTLINK) (electronic observer) that counts each activation of alcohol gel dispensers to direct observation (human observer) via remote review of video surveillance. RESULTS: We found low hand hygiene compliance rates of 2.2% (99/4,412) and 1.7% (140/8,277), respectively, at reception areas A and D, detected by direct observation. Using the electronic observer, we measured rates of 17% (15,624/91,724) and 7.1% (51,605/730,357) at reception areas A and D, respectively. For the overall time period of simultaneous electronic and human observation, the human observer captured 1% of the hand hygiene episodes detected by the electronic observer. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed very low hand hygiene compliance in hospital reception areas, and we found an electronic hand hygiene system to be a useful method to monitor hand hygiene compliance.
Asunto(s)
Infección Hospitalaria/prevención & control , Adhesión a Directriz , Higiene de las Manos/métodos , Control de Infecciones/métodos , Hospitales , Humanos , Estudios ProspectivosRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Monitoring of hand hygiene is an important part of the improvement of hospital quality indicators. METHODS: This study was prospectively performed over a 14-week (electronic observer) period from December 3, 2013-March 9, 2014, to evaluate hand hygiene compliance in an adult step-down unit. We compared electronic handwash counters with the application of radiofrequency identification (RFID - ZigBee; i-Healthsys, São Carlos, Brazil) (electronic observer), which counts each activation of the alcohol gel dispenser to direct observation (human observer) using the iScrub application. RESULTS: For the overall time period of simultaneous electronic and human observation, we found that the electronic observer identified 414 hand hygiene episodes, whereas the human observers identified 448 episodes. Therefore, we found 92% (95% confidence interval [CI], 90%-95%) overall concordance (414/448), with an intraclass correlation coefficient of .87 (95% CI, 0.77-0.92). CONCLUSION: Our RFID (ZigBee) system showed good accuracy (92%) and is a useful method to monitor hand hygiene compliance.