Hand Hygiene has been identified as a high priority for the prevention of healthcare associated infection worldwide as hand hygiene is the single most effective intervention for preventing healthcare associated infections. The Commission has awarded a contract to Austin Health Victoria under the leadership of Professor M Lindsay Grayson, Director of the Infectious Disease Department, to undertake the Commission's National Hand Hygiene Project. The purpose of the National Hand Hygiene Project is to develop a national approach to hand hygiene.
The National Hand Hygiene Project will deliver:
- Australian hand hygiene guidelines adapted from the WHO — World Alliance for Patient Safety "Clean Care is Safer Care" Program
- A National Hand Hygiene Initiative Education Strategy based on the Australian hand hygiene guidelines
- Establishment of clearly defined Outcome Measures for accurate auditing applicable across all health care settings
- Development of guidelines and audit tool/s based on the Outcome Measures
- Education program to support the hand hygiene audit tools
- Development of a mechanism for the electronic collection of outcomes data and information transfer to Hand Hygiene Australia
Hand Hygiene flyer (PDF 120 KB)
WHO poster - Your 5 moments for Hand Hygiene (PDF 196 KB)
Newsletters of the National Hand Hygiene Initiative
A quarterly newsletter will be published to provide stakeholders with an update of the initiative. If you would like to be on our distribution list please send an email to mail@safetyandquality.gov.au with "Please add me to the HAI distribution list" in the subject heading.April 2009 Newsletter (PDF 395 KB)
July 2009 Newsletter (PDF 295 KB)
October 2009 Newsletter (PDF 250 KB)
December 2009 Newsletter (PDF 580 KB)
July 2010 Newsletter (PDF 420 KB)
$500,000 awarded to evaluate the National Hand Hygiene Initiative
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care is pleased to congratulate Associate Professor Nicholas Graves, Queensland University of Technology, who has been awarded a $500,000 NHMRC Partnerships for Better Health Grant to evaluate the impact of the National Hand Hygiene Initiative on reducing healthcare-associated infections in public hospitals.Reducing healthcare associated infection is a key program of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (the Commission).
The Grant awarded to Professor Graves will enable the evaluation of the hospital based intervention to improve hand hygiene compliance among Australian healthcare workers and reduce healthcare associated infection in hospitals.
The evaluation will be undertaken through a partnership between the Commission, Queensland Health, Hand Hygiene Australia and researchers from Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queensland. The Health Departments of Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria, Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia will also work as partners for this valuable research.
Objectives of the project include:
- Describe current infection control resources in Australian hospitals and the case-mix of patients treated
- Assess the level of knowledge about hand hygiene and infection among healthcare workers
- Examine the role of the organisational safety climate in determining hand hygiene compliance
- Describe the outcomes of hand hygiene compliance and rates of healthcare associated Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia
- Evaluate the total economic cost of implementing the National Hand Hygiene Initiative in Australian public hospitals
- Estimate excess length of stay in hospital due to healthcare associated Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia
