Hand Hygiene for Patient and Provider Safety in Canada

Your hands bring hope and healing to your patients
Are your hands also helping to spread a hospital acquired infection?
Before touching anyone or anything...

Did you know...

• 220,000 people are afflicted with healthcare associated infections in Canada every year
• 8,000 to 12,000 of those individuals will die as a result of acquiring a healthcare  associated infection
  Zoutman, D., Ford, B.D., Bryce, E., Gourdeau, M., Hebert, G., Henderson, E., & Paton, S. Canadian Hospital Epidemiology Committee, Canadian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance Program and Health Canada: The state of infection surveillance and control in Canadian acute care hospitals.
• In one study,
• 80% of hospital staff who dressed wounds infected with MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) carried the organism on their hands for up to three hours
• 60% of hospital staff within 1/2 hour of contact with patients with Clostridium difficile infection were contaminated without even touching the patient, from merely returning drug charts to the ends of beds!
• 40% of all patient-nurse interactions resulted in the same species of Klebsiella pneumoniae transmission to healthcare workers' hands, lasting up to 150 minutes, even with contact as light as touching the patient's shoulder
• Meanwhile, simply washing with soap and water virtually eradicated these organisms.
  Stone, S.P. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 2001: 94(6): 278-281.  Reprinted by Mitka, M., in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 2009, November 3.  302(17).