World Hand Hygiene Day Is May 5

The World Health Organization is calling on healthcare organizations to recognize World Hand Hygiene Day on May 5, 2018. Hand hygiene is widely recognized as the best way to reduce healthcare-associated infections, according to both the WHO and CDC:

“Most health care-associated infections are preventable through good hand hygiene – cleaning hands at the right times and in the right way.” – World Health Organization

“Most germs that cause serious infections in healthcare are spread by people’s actions.” – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The WHO has specific calls to action for World Hand Hygiene Day, aimed at different constituencies. They are:

• Health workers: “Take 5 Moments to clean your hands to prevent sepsis in health care.”
• IPC leaders: “Be a champion in promoting hand hygiene to prevent sepsis in health care.”
• Health facility leaders: “Prevent sepsis in health care, make hand hygiene a quality indicator in your hospital.”
• Ministries of health: “Implement the 2017 WHA sepsis resolution. Make hand hygiene a national marker of health care quality.”
• Patient advocacy groups: “Ask for 5 Moments of clean hands to prevent sepsis in health care.”

For more information about World Hand Hygiene Day, including promotional resources you can use within your own hospital, click here.

If you’d like to explore how our system typically doubles hand hygiene performance rates and reduces HAIs by up to 75-80%, here’s a brief video about how it works. Or here’s a white paper on How the New Joint Commission Hand Hygiene Standards Could Impact Your Hospital.