In the healthcare setting, hand hygiene is the single most important way to prevent hospital acquired infections. Healthcare providers have a responsibility to provide safe care, and this simple intervention is key, not to mention, the right thing to do! Proper hand hygiene will protect patients and providers, reduce the spread of infections and the costs associate with treating infection, reduce hospital lengths of stay and readmissions, reduce wait times and prevent deaths. 

In April 2009, all hospitals in Ontario were required to publically report hand hygiene complaince based on direct observations of health care provider activities, utilizing the identified "4 Moments For Hand Hygiene".  These include:

• Before initial patient/patient environment contact
• Before aseptic procedure
• After body fluid exposure risk
• After patient/patient enviornment contact

OSMH results of the inital hand hygiene compliance audit are presented below:

Health care associated infections are a real and growing safety problem:

• In Canada, about 250,000 people – or one out of every nine patients admitted to hospital each year -- pick up infections while being treated for something else
• Every year, more than 8,000 patients die from those infections.
• Antibiotic resistant organisms add $40 to $52 million to the annual direct and indirect costs of providing care.
• The average cost of managing a patient infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)has increased from $14,360 in 1997 to $25,661 in 2007
• The incremental cost to prevent a case of health care associated infection is less than $20 per patient
• Proper hand hygiene - the use of alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water by health care providers to clean their hands – is one of the most effective ways of preventing health care associated infections
• Most health care settings report less than 50% adherence to hand hygiene and compliance among Ontario health care providers is estimated to be less than 32%
• Under the proposed new standards for infection prevention and control developed by Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation (March 2007), hospitals will be required to monitor infection rates and participate in hand hygiene initiatives in order to maintain their accreditation

Additional Hand Hygiene information can be found here

Rates for the province of Ontario can be found at MOHLTC Patient Safety Indicators