SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands – 5 May 2012
Every 5 May, WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands global campaign aims to maintain a global profile on the importance of hand hygiene in health care to reduce health care-associated infections. Health care-associated infections affect hundreds of millions of patients around the world every year.
WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands was launched in 2009 and to date has gathered registrations from 15 000 health-care facilities from the majority of WHO Member States, demonstrating commitment to improving patient safety through clean hands.
WHO's specific Call to Action for 5 May 2012 is for health-care facilities to prepare action plans for hand hygiene improvement and involve all staff and health-care facility leaders. WHO Template Actions Plans are available in English, French and Spanish here:
WHO Template Action Plans are aimed at facilitating the development of health-care facilities' action plans based on their WHO Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework results. This year, on 5 May, a summary report with the first results of the 2011 global survey on the use of the WHO Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework will be made available.
A number of other new hand hygiene improvement tools are also available from WHO, including the document on “Hand hygiene in outpatient, home-based care and long-term care facilities” and its associated tools.
Free WHO teleclasses are scheduled to take place during 2012 to support those working in health-care facilities, including on 3 and 7 May 2012. Advocacy video recordings by leaders in the field including WHO's Envoy for Patient Safety, Sir Liam Donaldson, are also available for use in local events.
If you are taking action in support of SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands, you are already helping to save lives!