Congratulations!
The 2011 edition of 5 May celebrations has attracted so far the participation of over 13 000 health-care facilities worldwide who have rallied to the call to improve hand hygiene at the point of care and advance patient safety. This corresponds to over 7 million health-care workers and almost 3 million patient beds in over 140 countries, territories and areas! Moreover, 42 countries/areas have taken a step further and initiated their own hand hygiene campaigns.
One of the aims of 2011 and beyond is to encourage even more commitment and increase registrations of health-care facilities. All WHO regions are well represented, but we seek “hand hygiene ambassadors” to promote a greater awareness in Africa and South-East Asia in particular.
As we celebrate our third global annual day of SAVE LIVE: Clean Your Hands on 5 May 2011, I am overwhelmed once again by such a visible commitment from health-care workers around the globe. As in 2010, many health-care facilities and countries have shared their national and local activities with WHO and some of these are featured on the dedicated WHO web pages. This clearly shows the level of commitment and innovative spirit of those working to prevent health care-associated infections around the globe in support of SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands. In recognition of this commitment, all registered health-care facilities will receive personalized commendation letters from WHO.
The 2011 edition of SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands carries the message “it’s time to move from commitment to sustained action on hand hygiene improvement”. Is your facility ready to meet the challenge? Where do YOU stand on hand hygiene? To answer these questions, WHO has developed the Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework.
The Framework is a validated and systematic tool providing a situation analysis of hand hygiene promotion and practices and, importantly, the level of progress at your institution. Simply download the Framework and complete the online form to give WHO your details.
The benefits are many and varied and allow you:
- to assess the level of progress at your institution, including infrastructure, resources, actions, commitment, and achievements;
- to develop an action plan for your hand hygiene promotion strategy, based on knowledge of the current situation;
- to identify key issues requiring attention and improvement;
- to track progress over time by repeated use of the Framework.
SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands is a global call to action ― an action so simple yet often so difficult to achieve. Improved hand hygiene, carried out at the right time and in the right way, helps to prevent infections, such as those caused by multidrug-resistant organisms, influenza, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and diarrhoeal-related diseases. Health-care workers around the world must make clean hands their priority.
You are at the frontline of patient care. You have the critical responsibility to ensure patient safety. Only your sustained commitment will allow this important and exciting initiative to scale new heights and ensure that it remains a priority issue on the global health agenda. Continue to raise the profile of hand hygiene at the point of care wherever you are. Continue to develop innovative strategies and action plans for hand hygiene improvement. Think partnership and link to national campaigns or help make these happen.
SAVE LIVE: Clean Your Hands is a perfect illustration of “Great oaks from little acorns grow”. We have surpassed our expectations once again in 2011. On behalf of all our patients around the world, thank you for your continued support to improve their safety and quality of care.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Didier Pittet
Director, Infection Control Programme, University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine
External Programme Lead, WHO First Global Patient Safety Challenge: Clean Care is Safer Care
