Staff in southern hospitals will this week be reminded of the critical importance of good hand hygiene, as a recent audit showed the Southern District Health Board region only just achieved the national standard.
Sunday was World Hand Hygiene Day, a World Health Organisaton event aimed at raising awareness of preventing the spread of disease.
Displays at Dunedin and Southland Hospitals will highlight the importance of handwashing, and staff will also be reminded of hygiene requirements.
Hand hygiene is audited annually by the Health Quality and Safety Commission, and in each of the past five years the SDHB met the 80% compliance rate; in the 2018-19 audit it rated 80.9%.
''We're encouraging all our healthcare workers to use World Hand Hygiene Day as an opportunity to refresh their hand hygiene knowledge and re-pledge to make it a priority,'' quality and risk manager Tina Gilbertson said.
''Hand hygiene represents one of the most important measures in the fight against healthcare-associated infections, making it a key patient safety issue.''
In the HQSC audit staff are marked on whether they have taken appropriate hand hygiene measures before touching a patient, before a procedure, after a procedure or body fluid exposure risk, after patient contact and after contact with patient surroundings.
