Abstract
Background: Health care-associated infections contribute to increased morbidity and mortality, increased resource use, higher costs, and extended hospitalizations. Proper hand hygiene (HH) is essential to health care-associated infection prevention. Low compliance among parents in our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was identified and prompted development of an HH initiative.
Objective: The objective of this quality improvement project was to improve parent HH practices with the ultimate goal of achieving 100% compliance with parent HH.
Methods: Between December 2011 and November 2014, our NICU Infection Prevention Committee developed and implemented the parent/family HH initiative entitled "It's in Your Hands" and created learning materials based on the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. Materials included information sheets, posters, stickers, and checklists. Audits, based on the World Health Organization's Five Moments for Hand Hygiene, were performed several times per week to monitor compliance.
Results: Before the intervention, only 71% (n = 1143) of all observed parents and family members performed proper HH. After the intervention, proper HH increased to 89% (n = 939). An average compliance of 89% was maintained throughout the intervention phase.
Discussion: This initiative led to sustained improvements in HH compliance among NICU parents. It has empowered parents to speak up and request proper HH from health care providers when interacting with their child. This initiative has been adopted as a hospital-wide standard of care.