We have become accustomed to performing hand hygiene more frequently and have seen how effective strong hand hygiene practice is against the spread of infection.
When thinking of hand hygiene in clinical settings, we tend to come back to key moments, including:
- Before and after touching a patient
- Before and after a procedure
- Before and after touching a patient’s surroundings
- Before and after cleaning equipment
These moments of hand hygiene are often obvious, but one of these moments is more commonly missed than others.
After touching a patient’s surroundings
That’s right, we often forget to perform hand hygiene after touching a patient’s surroundings. It is easy to forget to sanitise at this moment because we aren’t in direct contact with the patient. However, a patient’s surroundings can be contaminated by harmful pathogens.
By performing hand hygiene after touching a patient’s surroundings, we protect ourselves and our patients from the risk of infection.
New hand hygiene posters
Have you seen our new hand hygiene posters? You can download them for your area and replace any old posters.
For more information about hand hygiene, including Monash Health’s Hand Hygiene procedure, you can visit the employee COVID-19 website.
Approved by Prof Rhonda Stuart