Six Ways You Can Help Reduce HAIs in Your Hospital
Encourage good hand hygiene. This should be obvious, but hospitals are struggling to achieve compliance rates of even 50%. One study has found significant improvement by appealing to medical providers’ altruistic sense: “Hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases.”1
Embrace checklists. If they work for airline pilots, they can work for you. Study after study has supported their effectiveness, particularly in preventing CLABSIs and CAUTIs when well-integrated into a multifaceted approach.
Bundle up. A bundled approach that emphasized proper hand hygiene, disinfection, catheter avoidance, and timely removal cut CLABSI rates by morethan half, on average, in Veterans Administration ICUs throughout the U.S.2
Team up. For a C. diff-reduction effort at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara, Calif., success meant getting doctors, nurses, specialists, and administrators on board, both to brainstorm and to sustain momentum.
Be a role model. Consistently following HAI-prevention protocols, such as contact precautions, can make adherence contagious—in a very good way.
Be an innovator. By virtue of being ubiquitous in inpatient wards, hospitalists know what works and what doesn’t; your insight can be particularly valuable for a team-based, HAI-reduction effort.