A novel approach to auditing the compliance of hand hygiene and staff behaviour change

The objective of hand hygiene auditing is to gather information to identify opportunities for improving compliance, and ultimately the safety and quality of patient care. An Australian tertiary children's hospital has demonstrated high levels of hand hygiene compliance using traditional auditing practices. This compliance was achieved using a multidisciplinary, peer-based approach that effectively relays information back to the health professionals using education, feedback of audit data and active intervention by the auditor. This study also demonstrates that the audit tools commonly used in many Australian facilities may lack the sophistication to adequately assess strategies that are known to improve hand hygiene, namely the duration of the hand hygiene and the selection of the appropriate solution. Future audit practice should include an accurate measure of the time taken to undertake hand hygiene relevant to the practice setting, as well as the clinician's choice of solution.