As a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Private Organizations for Patient Safety group, GOJO Industries-Europe is encouraging the healthcare industry to get involved in the annual ‘Save Lives: Clean Your Hands’ campaign.
The theme of this year’s event on Saturday 5 May is ‘It’s in your hands – prevent sepsis in healthcare’. Sepsis, the body’s overactive and toxic response to an infection, is life-threatening and is reported to affect more than 30 million people worldwide every year. The WHO priorities for addressing sepsis are to strengthen prevention and to increase awareness of it.
Hand hygiene is at the core of effective infection prevention and control of the illness. The annual campaign and advocacy day is one important part of improving hand hygiene behaviour.
This year’s calls to action from WHO are:
• Health workers: “Take 5 Moments to clean your hands to prevent sepsis in healthcare."
• IPC leaders: “Be a champion in promoting hand hygiene to prevent sepsis in healthcare.”
• Health facility leaders: "Prevent sepsis in healthcare, make hand hygiene a quality indicator in your hospital.”
• Ministries of health: "Implement the 2017 WHA sepsis resolution. Make hand hygiene a national marker of healthcare quality."
• Patient advocacy groups: "Ask for 5 Moments of clean hands to prevent sepsis in healthcare."
Chris Wakefield, vice president, European marketing & product development, GOJO Industries-Europe Ltd, said: “GOJO is a strong advocate of taking a holistic approach to make hand hygiene second nature to everyone in a healthcare setting. We are calling on everyone to help spread the vital message about how hand hygiene can prevent sepsis on 5 May.
“Backed by a wealth of scientific expertise, and specialist formulations, GOJO has the technology and experience to work in partnership with healthcare managers to implement effective hand and surface hygiene regimes. This includes providing training on hand and surface hygiene best practice, and practical support with awareness-raising campaign materials designed to promote hygienic behaviour throughout a healthcare setting.”
Free advocacy toolkits to support the WHO Save Lives: Clean Your Hands campaign are available on the WHO website: http://www.who.int/infection-prevention/campaigns/clean-hands/en/
