The provision of alcohol based products to improve compliance with hand hygiene; Understanding our Advice: The provision of alcohol based products to improve compliance with hand hygiene
Ritchie K, Iqbal K, Macpherson K, Riches E, Stout A
Record ID 32005000198
English
Authors' objectives:
The objectives of this Health Technology Assessment (HTA) are as follows: - to review the existing literature on the effectiveness and costs and benefits of alcohol-based hand hygiene products - to assess whether the added benefits of improving hand hygiene are likely to offset the additional costs
The clinical effectiveness of alcohol-based hand hygiene products is assessed in terms of improvements in hand hygiene compliance and reductions in HAI through hand hygiene.
For the purpose of this report, the term 'hand hygiene' refers only to handwashing with soap and water and the use of alcohol-based hand hygiene products.
Authors' recommendations:
Despite the lack of unequivocal evidence, the potential benefit of providing alcohol-based hand hygiene products is likely to outweigh the costs and therefore these should be available for use by all NHSScotland staff who provide clinical care. Alcohol-based hand hygiene products should also be provided for the use of visitors, particularly where handwashing facilities are limited.
Those planning local initiatives to improve hand hygiene should note that multi-component interventions are more likely to be effective and sustainable than single-component interventions. Although such initiatives are more resource intensive, these have greater potential to be cost effective.
Robust evaluation of any hand hygiene intervention should be carried out. This will require compliance and/or infection rates to be audited both before and after the intervention and account taken of possible influences on these rates. Comparator groups should be included wherever possible.
Studies of the effectiveness of hand hygiene interventions should be published. This will allow a body of literature to be established which could subsequently be synthesised to identify the most effective interventions for particular clinical situations.
Authors' methods:
Systematic review
Details
Project Status:
Completed
URL for project:
http://www.nhshealthquality.org/
Year Published:
2005
English language abstract:
An English language summary is available
Publication Type:
Not Assigned
Country:
Scotland
MeSH Terms
- Cross Infection
- Infection Control
Contact
Organisation Name:
Quality Improvement Scotland
Contact Address:
Delta House, 50 West Nile Street Glasgow G1 2NP Scotland United Kingdom Tel: +44 141 225 6988; Fax: +44 141 221 3262
Contact Name:
shtg.hcis@nhs.net
Contact Email:
shtg.hcis@nhs.net
Copyright:
NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS)
This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment from a member of INAHTA or other HTA producer. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.