Hand Hygiene: A Handbook for Medical Professionals

In its most basic meaning and application hand hygiene is a term used to describe cleaning hands by using soap and warm water or by using an alcohol–based hand rub solution. Good hand hygiene is considered to be one of the most effective measures to help prevent the spread of bacteria such as MRSA or Clostridium difficile, alongside other measures that help control these infections. Hand hygiene is one of the most important ways to stop the spread of germs, and excellent hand hygiene practice is absolutely essential in the hospital environment, where sick patients are more vulnerable to infections than average healthy persons. If the hands of those caring for a patient, as well as the hands of the patient and their visitors, are kept clean, then the risk of the patient getting an infection will be greatly reduced.

In this book Professor Didier Pittet, the world′s pre–eminent scholar and clinician on hand hygiene, and his colleagues offer the first comprehensive, single–source overview of best practice in hand hygiene for infection control and disease prevention. This book: 

Developed and presented by the world leaders in this fundamental topic Fully integrates World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and policies Offers a global perspective in tackling hand hygiene issues in developed and developing countries Includes coverage of basic and highly complex clinical applications of hand hygiene practices Considers novel and unusual aspects and issues in hand hygiene such as religious and cultural aspect and patient participation Offers guidance at the individual and institutional and organizational levels for national and worldwide and hygiene promotion campaigns

This book is relevant for infection control preventionists, infection control nurses, infectious disease specialists, patient safety experts, hospital epidemiologists, healthcare staff, hospital administrators, and public health departments throughout the world.

Also available in the in the Hospital–Based Medicine: Current Concepts series:

Inpatient Anticoagulation
Margaret C. Fang, Editor, 2011

Hospital Images: A Clinical Atlas
Paul B. Aronowitz, Editor, 2012

Becoming a Consummate Clinician: What Every Student, House Officer, and Hospital Practitioner Needs to Know
Ary L. Goldberger and Zachary D. Goldberger, Editors, 2012

Perioperative Medicine: Medical Consultation and Co–Management
Amir K. Jaffer and Paul J. Grant, Editors, 2012

Clinical Care Conundrums: Challenging Diagnoses in Hospital Medicine
James C. Pile, Thomas E. Baudendistel, and Brian J. Harte, Editors, 2013

Inpatient Cardiovascular Medicine
Brahmajee K. Nallamothu and Timir S. Baman, Editors, 2013

Hospital–based Palliative Medicine
Steven Pantilat, Wendy Anderson, Mathew Gonzales, Eric Widera, Editors, 2015

Preface

Chapter 1. The burden of healthcare–associated infection
B. Allegranzi, S. BagheriNejad and D. Pittet

Chapter 2. Historical perspectives
Andrew James Stewardson and Didier Pittet

Chapter 3. Flora and physiology of normal skin
Gürkan Kaya and Didier Pittet

Chapter 4. Dynamics of hand transmission
Andrew James Stewardson, Benedetta Allegranzi and Didier Pittet

Chapter 5. Mathematical models of handborne transmission of nosocomial pathogens
Ben S Cooper and Nantasit Luangasanatip

Chapter 6. Methodological Issues In Hand Hygiene Science
Matthew Samore and Stephan Harbarth

Chapter 7. Statistical issues: how to overcome the complexity of data analysis in hand hygiene research?
A. Gayet–Ageron and E. Perencevich

Chapter 8. Hand hygiene agents
Pascal Bonnabry and Andreas Voss

Chapter 9. Methods to evaluate the antimicrobial efficacy of hand hygiene agents
Rotter ML, Sattar SA, Suchomel M

Chapter 10. Hand Hygiene Technique
Marie–Noëlle Chraïti and Andreas Widmer

Chapter 11. Compliance with hand hygiene best practices
B. Allegranzi, A. Stewardson and  D. Pittet

Chapter 12. Barriers to Compliance
John M. Boyce, Benedetta Allegranzi and Didier Pittet

Chapter 13. Physicians and Hand Hygiene
B. Allegranzi, A. Stewardson, D. Pittet

Chapter 14. Surgical hand preparation
Andreas F. Widmer and Joseph Solomkin

Chapter 15. Skin Reaction to Hand Hygiene
Elaine Larson

Chapter 16. Alcohol–Based Handrub Safety
John M. Boyce and M. Lindsay Grayson

Chapter 17. Rinse, gel, foam, soap selecting an agent
Andreas Voss

Chapter 18. Behavior and Hand Hygiene
Mary–Louise McLaws and Hugo Sax 

Chapter 19. Hand hygiene promotion strategies 
B. Allegranzi and D. Pittet

Chapter 20. My Five Moments for Hand Hygiene
Hugo Sax, Benedetta Allegranzi and Didier Pittet

Chapter 21. System change
B. Allegranzi, A. Voss and D. Pittet

Chapter 22. Education of Healthcare Professionals
Elaine Larson, Marie–Noelle Chraiti and Wing–Hong Seto

Chapter 23. Glove use and hand hygiene
Marie–Noelle Chraiti, Benedetta Allegranzi and Elaine Larson

Chapter 24. Monitoring hand hygiene performance
Hugo Sax and John M. Boyce

Chapter 25. Performance feedback
Andrew James Stewardson and Hugo Sax

Chapter 26. Marketing hand hygiene
Julie Storr and Hugo Sax

Chapter 27. Human Factors Design
Lauren Clack and Hugo Sax

Chapter 28. Institutional safety climate
Enrique Castro–Sánchez, Alison Holmes and  Didier Pittet

Chapter 29. Personal Accountability for Hand Hygiene
Robert M. Wachter and Peter Pronovost

Chapter 30. Patient Participation and Empowerment
Yves Longtin,  Susan E Sheridan and Maryanne McGuckin

Chapter 31. Religion and Hand Hygiene
Jaffar A. Al–Tawfiq and Ziad A. Memish

Chapter 32. Hand Hygiene Promotion from the US Perspective: Putting WHO and CDC Guidelines into Practice
Katherine Ellingson

Chapter 33. WHO multimodal promotion strategy
B. Allegranzi and D. Pittet

Chapter 34. Monitoring your institution (Hand Hygiene Self–Assessment Framework)  
B. Allegranzi, A. Stewardson and D. Pittet

Chapter 35. National hand hygiene campaigns
Claire Kilpatrick and Julie Storr

Chapter 36. Hand hygiene campaigning: from one hospital to the entire country
Philip L. Russo and M. Lindsay Grayson

Chapter 37. Improving Hand Hygiene through Joint Commission Accreditation and the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare
Mark R. Chassin,  Barbara I. Braun and Anne Marie Benedicto

Chapter 38. A Worldwide WHO hand hygiene in healthcare campaign
Claire Kilpatrick,  Julie Storr and Benedetta Allegranzi

Chapter 39. The economic impact of improved hand hygiene
Nicholas Graves

Chapter 40. Hand Hygiene: key principles for the manager
A. Holmes, D. Pittet and E. Castro–Sánchez

Chapter 41. Effect of hand hygiene on infection rates
B. Allegranzi, S. Harbarth and D. Pittet

Chapter 42 A. Hand hygiene in specific patient populations and situations: critically ill patients
Caroline Landelle, Jean–Christophe Lucet and Didier Pittet

Chapter 42 B. Hand hygiene in specific patient populations and situations: neonates and pediatrics
Walter Zingg and Hanan Balkhy

Chapter 42 C. Hand Hygiene in Long–term care facilities and home care
Maria Luisa Moro, Marie–Noelle Chraiti and Benedetta Allegranzi

Chapter 42 D. Hand hygiene in ambulatory care
MN. Chraïti, S. Bagheri Nejad and B. Allegranzi

Chapter 42 E. Hand Hygiene in Hemodialysis
Marie–Noelle Chraiti, Sepideh Bagheri Nejad and Benedetta Allegranzi

Chapter 42 F. Hand Hygiene in Specific Patient Populations and Situations: Anesthesiology
Pr Francois Stephan

Chapter 43. Hand Hygiene In Resource–Poor Settings
NizamDamani, Shaheen Mehtar and Benedetta Allegranzi

Chapter 44 A. Role of Hand Hygiene in MRSA Control
Stephan Harbarth

Chapter 44 B. Role of Hand Hygiene in Clostridium difficile Control
John M. Boyce and Walter Zingg

Chapter 44 C. Role of Hand Hygiene in Respiratory Diseases including Influenza
Wing Hong Seto and Benjamin J. Cowling

Chapter 44 D. Handborne Spread Of Noroviruses and its Interruption
Syed A. Sattar and Yves Longtin

Chapter 45. Conducting a literature review on hand hygiene
Daniela Pires, Fernando Bellissimo–Rodrigues and Didier Pittet

Index

Didier Pittet, MD, MS, CBE, is the Hospital Epidemiologist and Director of the Infection Control Programme and WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety at the University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland; Professor of Medicine and Hospital Epidemiology at the University of Geneva. Professor Pittet is Lead of the World Health Organization First Global Patient Safety Challenge "Clean Care is Safe Care". He is the recipient of several national and international honours including a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) awarded by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for services to the prevention of healthcare–associated infection in the UK (2007). Professor Pittet is co–author of more than 400 publications in peer–reviewed journals and  50 chapters in textbooks. The experience of his team in engaging nations and healthcare policy makers worldwide in a universal commitment to patient safety is unique.

John Boyce, MD, is Chief of the Section of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiologist at the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven, CT, and is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine. He is past president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). He was the lead co–author on the 2002 CDC Hand Hygiene Guideline for Healthcare Settings. Since 2004, he has served as a temporary consultant to the World Health Organization, where he is a member of a core group who developed the WHO Guidelines for Hand Hygiene.

Benedetta Allegranzi, MD, is a specialist in infectious diseases and tropical medicine with expertise in infection control and hospital epidemiology. She currently works at the World Health Organization and at the Infection Control Programme at the University of Geneva Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland. She is the Deputy Lead of the First Global Patient Safety Challenge "Clean Care is Safer Care" of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety, and is responsible for implementation of the First Global Patient Safety Challenge in Europe and Africa.