Posts Tagged ‘hand hygiene’
Looking back to IPS 2018
It’s been a month or two since the 2018 Infection Prevention Society Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. So, we thought it would be a good time to look back and remind ourselves of some of the highlights from our point of view. You can access all of the IPS abstracts here. – Andreas Voss gave a fabulous…
Read MoreAntimicrobial-impregnated patient hand wipes are a goer
A lab-based study using healthy volunteers has demonstrated that antimicrobial-impregnated hand wipes can do as well – if not better – than soap and water for hand hygiene. These findings provide more support for the idea that hand wipes could be a useful innovation in improving patient hand hygiene. The study aimed to evaluate the use of…
Read MoreTime to wipe away C. difficile from patients’ hands?
A US study has found that around 15% of patients with C. difficile infection have C. difficile contaminated hands, and that removing these spores from patients’ hands is challenging. The study was performed in a 500-bed US hospital. Around 50 patients with C. difficile infection were enrolled in the study, and randomised to either hand hygiene using either alcohol-based hand rub (ABHR) or…
Read MoreCould you wipe away viral illness at home?
An interesting study published a couple of years ago showed that transmission of bacteriophage used as a surrogate for respiratory viruses was reduced significantly by introducing a once-per-day hand wipe in the home environment. Could this suggest that hand wipes have a role in reducing viral illness at home? Five households, each containing two adults and three…
Read MoreUpdates on chlorhexidine from ECCMID 2017
A number of key studies were published at ECCMID 2017, providing further evidence of the utility of chlorhexidine for reducing the risk of HCAI. A study from South Korea evaluated the impact of universal skin antisepsis using 2% chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) washcloths in reducing MRSA acquisitions and bloodstream infections. Following a 12 month baseline period, a two-year…
Read MoreInfection Prevention 2016: a bug’s eye view
Another IPS conference has been and gone, and what a lot of fun and learning to be had! New research published, new products launched, and new contacts made – all in a few days in sunny Harrogate. Several of the lectures were outstanding: Prof Gary French on the ‘swing’ away from antibiotic-resistant Gram-positive bacteria towards…
Read MoreOf mice and men – surface contamination in operating theatres determined by new study
Following on from an assessment of high touch areas in acute patient areas comes a new study that has examined which surfaces in an operating theatre are the most frequently touched and additionally assessed the level of contamination of these surfaces (as was done for acute areas). In the first phase of the study, direct observation of three…
Read MoreWhich strategy is most cost-effective in preventing the transmission of C. difficile?
As resources become more and more constrained in healthcare facilities around the world, we need to think in terms of both effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness. A new modelling study published in PLoS ONE evaluates the cost-effectiveness of several strategies to prevent the transmission of C. difficile. Probably the key finding of the study is that hand hygiene compliance, environmental…
Read MoreEvidence of source control for XDR Acinetobacter outbreak management grows
There is a steadily growing body of evidence that chlorhexidine washcloths can be effective in controlling multi-resistant Gram-negatives. Hot on the heels of a paper that demonstrated the effectiveness of the in controlling spread of Acinetobacter in a critical care unit1 comes a further paper relating to a hospital-wide outbreak of multi-resistant Acinetobacter. A new paper2 from Gray…
Read MoreClinell Hand Wipe dispensers
Patient hand hygiene represents the next big step in infection prevention (Landers, 2012) Patient hand hygiene is a critical aspect of HCAI prevention (Landers, 2012. Burnett, 2009). Pathogenic organisms can be frequently detected on hands of acute care patients (Istenes, 2013). It has been proven that after 7 days in a hospital, 62% of all…
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