Select language
The consequences of HAI are very serious. Hundreds of millions of patients are affected by health care-associated infections worldwide each year, leading to significant mortality and financial losses for health systems. Annual financial losses due to health care-associated infections are estimated at approximately 7 billion euro in Europe, including direct costs only and at about 6.5 billion US dollars in the USA. There are evident cost savings in working on infection prevention, and the importance of maintaining the focus on this work is of great importance. WHO claims that hand hygiene compliance levels are very often below 40%. A constant reminder of conducting correct hand hygiene procedures will therefore have a positive effect on the development considering HAI.
| When? | Why? | Examples. |
| 1 Before patient contact | When?Clean your hands before touching a patient when approaching him/her. | Why?To protect the patient against harmful germs carried on your hands. | Examples.Shaking hands, helping a patient to move around, clinical examination. |
| 2 Before an aseptic task | When?Clean your hands immediately before any aseptic task. | Why?To protect the patient against harmful germs, including the patient’s own germs, entering his or her body. | Examples.Oral/dental care, secretion aspiration, wound dressing, catheter insertion, preparation of food, medications. |
| 3 After body fluid exposure risk | When?Clean your hands immediately after an exposure risk to body fluids (and after glove removal). | Why?To protect yourself and the health-care environment from harmful patient germs. | Examples.Oral/dental care, secretion aspiration, drawing and manipulating blood, clearing up urine, feces, handling waste. |
| 4 After patient contact | When?Clean your hands after touching a patient and her/his immediate sorroundings, when leaving the patient's side. | Why?To protect yourself and the health-care environment from harmful patient germs. | Examples.Shaking hands, helping a patient to move around, clinical examination. |
| 5 After touching patient surroundings | When?Clean your hands after touching any object or furniture in the patient's immediate surroundings, when leaving - even if the patient has not been touched. | Why?To protect yourself and the health-care environment from harmful patient germs. | Examples.Changing bed linen, perfusion speed adjustment. |
Hand hygiene is an important transmission route. |
|
Low hand hygiene compliance among health personnel. |
|
Large potential by increasing hand hygiene. |
|
Every 7 seconds a patient gets a hospital-acquired infection in a European hospital.
Every 4 minutes a patient dies from a hospital-acquired infection.
50% of infections can be avoided by improving hand hygiene compliance.
Infections result in high rates of mortality and cost at least €15.000 per infection.
