By Alison Thompson, director of public-private partnerships, CDC Foundation
Did you know that on any given day, one in every 25 hospital patients in the United States has at least one infection due to their medical care? One of the reasons is that adherence to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hand hygiene recommendations is low, ranging between 20 and 40 percent, according to studies.
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are infections that people acquire while receiving treatment for another condition in a health care setting. HAI statistics reflect the need for healthcare providers to follow infection control guidance including practicing hand hygiene at key points in time to disrupt the transmission of microorganisms to patients, visitors and healthcare workers. Patients and their loved ones can also play a role in helping to prevent infections by practicing good hand hygiene themselves as well as asking or reminding their healthcare providers to perform hand hygiene.
To better protect patients from this ongoing problem, the CDC Foundation recently announced a new partnership with GOJO to provide hand hygiene educational materials and tools for patients, healthcare providers and caregivers in U.S. healthcare facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes and other settings. The goal of this initiative is to promote hand hygiene practices in these settings to help reduce the number of HAIs. This project is part of the Safe Healthcare Initiative, a partnership program coordinated by CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) and the CDC Foundation to eliminate HAIs.
Learn more about what you can do to prevent HAIs at www.cdc.gov/HAI.
