Each year, on the 5th of May we celebrate the World Hand Hygiene Day.
This initiative is led by the World Health Organization, as part of the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands Campaign and aims to bring people together from around the world to improve hand hygiene in health care and prevent healthcare-associated infections.
This year’s slogan is “Unite for safety: clean your hands” to recognize that people of all levels should work together to improve hand hygiene practices and save lives. This includes healthcare workers, patients, visitors, facility managers, infection prevention and control practitioners, quality and safety leads and policy makers.
However, this message is also relevant to preventing infections in the community. The recent pandemic has clearly shown that as each of us, regardless of who we are and where we work, has a role in preventing the spread of infections, for example by ensuring good hand hygiene practices. Thus, it is important to continue spreading the messages and raising awareness on the importance of hand hygiene – and the World Hand Hygiene Day is a great opportunity to do so.
To spread this message, the SHIP team has prepared a short video providing a step-by-step guide to the correct WHO 6-step technique for hand hygiene using alcohol-based hand rub. This method of cleaning hands has been shown to be effective when using soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub. The video features SHIP teammates and GCU colleagues performing each of the six steps in different settings, including clinical settings, laboratory, work offices, and homes.
Effective #HandHygiene can save lives! @SHIPGCU team is “unite for safety: clean your hands” 🙌in support of the @WHO campaign.
We aim to promote a strong culture/#safety climate able to provide high-quality care for everyone #ForTheCommonGood #WeAreGCU @CaledonianNews pic.twitter.com/yGu2wlzJwm
— InfectionPrevention (@SHIPGCU) May 5, 2022
Furthermore, SHIP researcher, Dr Lucyna Gozdzielewska featured in the recent episode of The Common Good Podcast, hosted by Craig Telfer, GCU Video Communications Officer, to discuss the World Hand Hygiene Day 2022 and the SHIP Team’s work on improving, and promoting good hand hygiene practices.
Please join us in celebrating the World Hand Hygiene Day 2022 and unite with us in ensuring safe hands by learning and promoting the correct 6-step technique!
The video has been released via the SHIP Twitter (@SHIPGCU), while The Common Good Podcast can be accessed here: https://soundcloud.com/gcu-common-good-podcast/celebrating-world-hand-hygiene-day-with-dr-lucyna-gozdzielewska
To find out more about the SHIP team, head on to the GCU website, read the rest of our blogs and follow us on Twitter @SHIPGCU