Well, I would make sure that everyone in your team has been shown how to wash hands properly. You could do regular audits and inform staff how well or not well they have done. Perhaps you could also keep a log of infection rate before you implement a hand hygiene programme. You teach your colleagues to follow good hand washing techniques and check the infection rate after the good hand washing intervention. You compare the infection rate before and after; hopefully you should see the difference. Hope this helps.

Best Wishes

Donghong

Control of infection and hand washing goes hand in hand and is self responsibility no one can force

We did a very strict policy to implement hand washing in our unit. In-house lectures and periodic reminders will help in maintenance of knowledge and awareness. In addition to that we did competencies to all staff. The easily access to sinks and alcohol rubs will improve compliance dramatically. Our team members will work together to remind each other to use alcohol rubs before and after each movement.

Thanks, Moiz. Hand washing should be an essential routine practice in the NICU. It is important that individual staff adheres to the infection control procedures as Muhammad rightly commented. Moiz, the idea of doing a covert observation by a nurse could be a useful one. Perhaps staff do like to be told at some stage that there is an audit going on...? At least they should be informed of the results so they know how well/not well they have done.

Best Wishes

Donghong

I'll attach a summary of a project we have done to reduce sepsis rates. was quite successful. we did submit ist 2012 for PAS meeting, but it did not get accepted. However, it gives you an idea what might help.

rise awareness; create a working group and assign accountability; do audits; review your handling practice of central lines; reduce line days because central lines make HCP lazy in advancing enteral feeds.

good luck

Hello Christophe, many thanks for posting your PAS abstract. Not sure why that was not accepted.. We are in the middle of a very similar process in our NICU implementing practices to reduce nosocomial infection some locally and some on a state-wide network basis. I have a question about the marked decreased in mortality in the abstract. Were these all deaths or infection related deaths? Thanks for your response, Adrienne

Sorry for my late reply: some of the deaths were infection related, i'd say about 50%; the rest came from some change in ventilator and feeding management.

An infection control nurse functions as an observer and advisor during rounds. Senior nursing staff are also encouraged to remind the doctors and other staff about hand care prior to handling babies. Compliance has been very good.