NICE, FRANCE — A campaign to improve hand hygiene at a Danish hospital failed to decrease hospital-acquired infections, Dr. Sussie Laustsen and colleagues reported in a poster at the 16th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
The finding comes at a time when hand hygiene is being promoted as the cornerstone of the World Health Organization's Global Patient Safety Challenge, which launched in October 2005 to reduce health care-acquired infections worldwide.
In April 2004, a campaign began in all clinical departments at Aarhus (Denmark) University Hospital that included an evidence-based guideline and e-learning program describing how and when to perform alcohol-based hand disinfection.
Trained observers recorded potential opportunities for hand disinfection during four surveys during 2004–2005. Interobserver variation was minimized through audits.
Compliance with hand disinfection increased from 53% in the first quarter of 2004 to 71% in the first quarter of 2005, and consumption of hand alcohol doubled from about 1,250 liters at baseline to 2,500 liters in 2005.
But the incidence of hospital-acquired infections did not decrease from baseline (1.77 per 1,000 bed-days) to the first quarter of 2005 (1.80 per 1,000 bed-days).
The reason for this finding is unknown, but the hospital plans to increase surveillance, particularly among physicians, and is conducting a prevalence study of other nosocomial infections, Dr. Laustsen said in an interview.
As shown in other studies, compliance in 2005 for physicians was lower (20%) than for nurses (44%) and other health care workers (25%).