Some healthcare providers only practice proper hand hygiene less than half of the recommended time, according to studies.
However, research from Tork manufacturer Essity reveals that around 80% of professionals have expressed a desire to improve their hand hygiene at work.
Essity is supporting this year’s World Hand Hygiene Day (5 May) with a series of interactive and immersive hand hygiene trainings. These are designed to help healthcare professionals effectively implement hygiene practices and improve adherence to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 5 moments of hand hygiene.
Liam Mynes, Essity’s Sales Manager Professional Hygiene, said: “Healthcare professionals are exposed to pathogens frequently throughout the day – whether through close contact with patients or interaction with high touch surfaces such as doorknobs, bedrails or patient bathrooms.
“While the importance of hand hygiene is widely understood among healthcare providers, following hand hygiene best practices can be challenging. There is a growing need to empower effective implementation of sustainable, accessible and scalable hygiene procedures.”
Tork Virtual Reality (VR) Clean Hands Training and Education is designed to make hand hygiene training more engaging and effective to drive behavioural change and accelerate deeper learning.
The training invites users into a digital world where they are confronted with a series of scenarios in which hand hygiene needs to be carried out. Trainees take on the role of a nurse, carer or doctor where they are tasked with caring for several patients. The trainee’s results are then assessed on how far they comply with the WHO’s 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene.
Liam continued: “According to research we only remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see. However, when simulating an action as one does as a part of VR, we remember as much as 90%.”
This is the ninth consecutive year that Tork will be participating in World Hand Hygiene Day, an initiative run by the Private Organizations for Patient Safety and facilitated by the WHO.
Dr Claire Kilpatrick, Director of KS Healthcare Consulting, added: “To improve hand hygiene practices, it’s important for employees to have access to consistent, hands-on training that easily transfers to their day-to-day workflows.
“Sharing hand hygiene knowledge is important because hand hygiene is one of the most effective ways to keep people safe from infection, help people understand when and how to perform hand hygiene, and achieve public health targets in a cost-effective way. When the 65 million healthcare workers around the globe train and act on hand hygiene they help save lives – yours, a loved one’s and those most vulnerable in society.”
