By Jennifer L.W. Fink, RN, BSN “This? This is a thing for nurses?” TikTokker @TheNurseErica steps aside, revealing an electronic hand hygiene system. Her skepticism and sarcasm are clearly on display. And you know what? I don’t blame her. Long-...
You know how important your Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is to your institution’s reputation and functioning. And you know that the Leapfrog Hand Hygiene Survey contributes to your facility’s safety grade. You probably also know that Leapfrog h...
“Technology made large populations possible; large populations now make technology indispensable.” ― Joseph Wood Krutch, American author Infection preventionists have a vitally important job: they’re charged with preventing the spread of infe...
Weighing a chicken doesn’t make it fatter. That piece of wisdom comes from William Bornstein, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Quality and Patient Safety Officer for Emory Healthcare. It might seem strange for a medical doctor to “weigh i...
Patient safety systems must be able to withstand serious threats to patient safety. If such systems whither when confronted with staff shortages, supply chain disruptions, or infectious diseases, they cannot be considered patient safety systems. A sy...
Some hospitals have asked The Leapfrog Group to relax its hand hygiene standards, says Leah Binder, Leapfrog’s president and CEO, according to a January 28, 2022 Becker’s Hospital Review article. That’s not going to happen. Becker’s Hos...
No change initiative will be successful without staff buy-in. It doesn’t matter how inspired, impactful, or well-researched the initiative is. A hand hygiene initiative that’s projected to significantly decrease healthcare-associated infections (...
Initiating a coordinated hand hygiene improvement initiative in a large healthcare system is not as difficult as you may think. Certainly, there are challenges involved when introducing any kind of change in an organization with thousands of employee...
Nurses have no patience for hand hygiene systems that interfere with their clinical workload. Given the choice between missing hand hygiene but performing timely, necessary care or diligently performing hand hygiene but missing the opportunity to pro...
Forget “normal.” Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, with new variants popping up around the globe, one thing is abundantly clear: Every aspect of our lives has been affected by the presence of a virus that was previously unknown. Health...