Hand Hygiene
Hand hygiene is recognised as the single most important measure that individuals can take to interrupt the spread of communicable diseases. High levels of hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers have been linked to reductions in the incidence of healthcare-associated infectionsand spread of multiple drug-resistant organisms.
Information for the general public on handwashing is available on HSE.ie
Hand Hygiene Audit
The HSE published a national protocol for measuring how good healthcare workers are at cleaning their hands for each of the WHO 5 moments of Hand Hygiene. This measurement is called a hand hygiene audit and the results are expressed as the percentage of times hands are cleaned when they should be. This ensures that hand hygiene is measured the same way in each hospital so that changes can be monitored over time.
Hand hygiene audit results and audit tools
Alcohol Hand Rub Surveillance
The alcohol hand rub surveillance initiative was set up as an indicator of hand hygiene compliance in all acute public hospitals in Ireland. The data collected represents the total volume of alcohol-based hand rub used per hospital per year/quarter, excluding that used for pre-operative surgical "scrub".