One in Five U.S. Hospitals Don't Properly Use Hand Sanitizer

A recent study shows that as many as one in five U.S. hospitals do not adequately prevent health associated infections.

In fact, researchers from the Columbia University School of Nursing and the World Health Organization found that 20 percent of all U.S. health facilities don't make alcohol-based hand sanitizer available at every point of care. However, lack of sanitizer can increase the rate of infection.

The latest findings also showed that only half of the hospitals ambulatory care, along with long-term care facilities studied, had set aside funds in their budgets for hand hygiene training.

For the study, researchers examined a sample of 168 facilities in 42 states and Puerto Rico. The findings showed that approximately 77.5 percent of the facilities reported that alcohol-based sanitizer was continuously available at every point of care. The study also showed that about one in ten facilities reported that senior leaders, including the chief executive officer, director of nursing and medical direction, made a clear commitment to support hand hygiene improvement.

"When hospitals don't focus heavily on hand hygiene, that puts patients at unnecessary risk for preventable health associated infections," said study author Laurie Conway, RN, MS, CIC, PhD student at Columbia Nursing, via Science Codex. "The tone for compliance with infection control guidelines is set at the highest levels of management, and our study also found that executives aren't always doing all that they can to send a clear message that preventing infections is a priority."

"The survey also shows that facilities participating in the WHO global hand hygiene campaign achieved a higher level of progress," added co-author Prof. Didier Pittet, MD, MS, Director, Infection Control Program and WHO Collaborating Center on Patient Safety, University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland. "While hand hygiene compliance is the responsibility of every health care worker, U.S. health care facilities would certainly benefit from coordinated national and sub-national efforts aimed at hand hygiene improvement. They would also gather innovative ideas and trans-cultural approaches by participating in global efforts such as the WHO campaign."

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More information regarding the study can be found via the American Journal of Infection Control.