Advancing hand hygiene compliance in the NHS

In tackling the issue of low hand hygiene compliance in healthcare facilities, electronic group monitoring presents establishments with an accurate, sophisticated means to effectively monitor staff behaviour. Moving towards these measures should be considered a priority for any hospital establishment, which should be actively looking to reduce the number of healthcareassociated infections (HCAIs) that continue to threaten the well-being of patients. 

There is no escaping the fact that traditional measures for tracking hand hygiene compliance are outdated and ineffective. Most commonly, ‘direct observation’ is used – human observers physically monitoring staff behaviour as they perform their day to day duties and determining the healthcare facility’s compliance in line with the WHO’s ‘Five moments for hand hygiene'

The reality is that direct observation has its limitations. Observational programmes are typically conducted manually, with limited sophistication in the gathering or analysis of the data compiled.