Evaluation of a patient-empowering hand hygiene programme in the UK

Partners in Your Care(R), a patient education behavioral model for increasi ng handwashing compliance and empowering the patient with responsibility fo r their care was evaluated in an acute care hospital in Oxford, UK. A contr olled prospective intervention study comparing medical and surgical patient s was performed. Ninety-eight patients were eligible for the study Thirty-n ine patients (40%) agreed to participate in the programme Partners in Your Care by asking all healthcare workers who were going to have direct contact with them "Did you wash your hands?". Compliance with the programme was me asured through soap/alcohol usage and handwashings per bed day before and a fter its introduction. Partners in Your Care increased handwashing on avera ge 50%. Healthcare workers washed hands more often with surgical patients t han with medical (P<0.05). Alcohol gel was used on less than 1% of occasion s. Sixty-two percent of patients in study felt at ease when asking healthca re workers "Did you wash your hands?" Seventy-eight percent received a posi tive response (washed hands). All patients asked nurses, but only 35% asked physicians. Partners in Your Care increased handwashing compliance in the UK. This programme empowers patients with responsibility for their care, pr ovides infection control staff with a continuing means for providing handwa shing education without additional staff and can save costs for a hospital. (C) 2001 The Hospital Infection Society.