Seeing is achieving with hand sanitizers
Out of sight means of mind when it comes to locating hand sanitizers. That’s the simple conclusion of a study appearing in the June 27 issue of Quality and Safety in Health Care.
In “Patient safety begins with proper planning: A quantitative method to improve hospital design,” 52 physicians examined patients in one of two specially designed rooms. The rooms differed only in the placement of hand sanitizers. In one room the sanitizer was in the physician’s field of view during the examination; not so in the other room.
The result: 53.8% hand hygiene compliance rate when sanitizers were within the field of vision; 11.5% compliance when not.
Do these results surprise you? Are hand sanitizers in your facility in the field of vision of the healthcare worker during patient examinations and encounters? Let us know in the comment section below.
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David LaHoda
David LaHoda is the managing editor of the OSHA Healthcare Advisor, the weekly ezine OSHA Healthcare Connection, Medical Environment Update, HCPro's Basic OSHA Compliance Manual Kits for medical or dental practices, and the OSHA online training materials for ambulatory healthcare facilities.
David has written 792 posts.
Comments
Yes, if your main concern is measurement, then outside the room may be the only place. But, our concern is that it is utilized at all possible opportunities. There are multiple opportunities for hand hygiene with any visit to a patient’s room. As other research has shown, if the dispenser is not there, close by, then it won’t be used. So, if you have 38 rooms in one smoke compartment and 1 liter dispensers, are you to be more concerned with seeing or with use within the room?
We have dispensers at the door inside each exam room. Originally they were put in by the sinks, but found they were either not used or mistaken for soap dispensers. I totally agree with the study. So many of the way we design things does not take into account the human factor. If it is not easy to use, it will normally not be used. Easy to use also means you don’t have to go out of your way to access it.
We have found the same applies to bathrooms. If the sink is between the toilets and the door, they are a lot more likely to be used than if they are to the back of the restroom.
When I was a grad student in Miami in the 1980′s I did a “mini study” at a small community hospital on hand hygiene. The reason the staff did not wash their hands in the 8 bed ICU was because they placed the air and oxygen outlets for the ventilators right over the sinks. As a result, the ventilators blocked access to the sinks. Location, Location, LOCATION..
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