A new study shows that improved hand hygiene in the workplace, significantly reduced health care claims for hand hygiene preventable infections (eg, cold and influenza). Furthermore, implementation significantly improved employee satisfaction and hand hygiene knowledge and behavior.
The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of a multimodal hand hygiene intervention program in reducing health care insurance claims for hygiene preventable infections (eg, cold and influenza), absenteeism, and subjective impact on employees. A 13.5-month prospective, randomized cluster controlled trial was executed with alcohol-based hand sanitizer in strategic workplace locations and personal use (intervention group) and brief hand hygiene education (both groups). Four years of retrospective data were collected for all participants. Hygiene preventable health care claims were significantly reduced in the intervention group by over 20% (P< 0.05). Absenteeism was positively impacted overall for the intervention group. Employee survey data showed significant improvements in hand hygiene behavior and perception of company concern for employee well-being. The authors concluded that providing a comprehensive, targeted, yet simple to execute hand hygiene program significantly reduced the incidence of health care claims and increased employee workplace satisfaction.
The study can be found at: http://journals.lww.com/joem/Pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2016&issue=06000&article=00025&type=Fulltext
