Drastic hourly changes in hand hygiene workload and performance rates: A multicenter time series analysis.

Background: High hand hygiene (HH) workload is a commonly cited barrier to optimal HH performance. The objective of this study was to assess trends of HH workload as defined by HH opportunities (HHO) and performance rates over different timescales using automated HH monitoring system data.

Methods: This multiyear retrospective observational study was conducted in 58 inpatient units located in 10 North American hospitals.

Sample sizes for estimating the sensitivity of a monitoring system that generates repeated binary outcomes with autocorrelation.

Sample size formulas are provided to determine how many events and how many patient care units are needed to estimate the sensitivity of a monitoring system. The monitoring systems we consider generate time series binary data that are autocorrelated and clustered by patient care units. Our application of interest is an automated hand hygiene monitoring system that assesses whether healthcare workers perform hand hygiene when they should.

The effect of a prospective intervention program with automated monitoring of hand hygiene performance in long-term and acute-care units at a Veterans Affairs medical center.

Objective: To measure the impact of an automated hand hygiene monitoring system (AHHMS) and an intervention program of complementary strategies on hand hygiene (HH) performance in both acute-care and long-term care (LTC) units.

Design: Prospective, nonrandomized, before-and-after intervention study.

Setting: Single Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), with 2 acute-care units and 6 LTC units.

Hand hygiene product use by food employees in casual dining and quick-service restaurants.

Hand hygiene product usage characteristics by food employees when hand sanitizers are made available are not well understood. To investigate hand hygiene product usage in casual dining and quick-service restaurants, we placed automated monitoring soap and sanitizer dispensers side-by-side at handwash sinks used by food employees in seven restaurants. Dispenses were monitored, and multiple dispenses that occurred within 60 s of each other were considered a single hand hygiene event.