WIHI Event: No Excuses, No Slack! The Latest from the Front Lines on Hand Hygiene

The upcoming WIHI event,  "No Excuses, No Slack! The Latest from the Front Lines on Hand Hygiene" will be held March 7 from 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET and will focus on the importance of good hand hygiene in the prevention of infections.

As IHI points out in the promotion for this event, "among the biggest contributors to hospital-acquired infections are, inadvertently, health professionals themselves... and others who come in contact with patients."  During the live event, participants will have the opportunity to hear about increased awareness of this issue and compliance with strict hand hygiene requirements.

INQRI researchers David Thompson and Jill Marsteller appreciate the goals of this session. The goal of their INQRI-funded work was to implement a comprehensive safety program including an evidence based intervention to reduce central line-associated blood stream infections while examining the context of nursing care delivery on patient outcomes. The team conducted the first randomized-control trial to reduce central line associated blood stream infections among ICU patients. This study, conducted in ICUs in 12 states, has shown that substantial reductions in infections can be widely achieved and this project did so with nurses leading the infection control efforts. Their study builds on the well-known work of Dr. Peter Pronovost, creator of the line insertion “checklist.” Hospitals that followed the components of their ICU safety program (which included a focus on hand washing), and adopted a safety improvement environment that fostered nurse involvement in quality improvement efforts, reduced, and in some cases completely eliminated, bloodstream infections for several months at a time. Their research is also showing that higher nurse turnover is related to higher infection rates.

Click here to enroll in the "No Excuses, No Slack" event.

Click here to learn more about the Thompson-Marsteller study and access publications from this work.