'My Five Moments: understanding a user-centred approach to hand hygiene improvement within a broader implementation strategy

Between 2006 and 2009, WHO elaborated and issued the concept of ‘My Five Moments for Hand Hygiene’ in healthcare1–4 in collaboration with the pioneering infection prevention and control (IPC) research group at the University of Geneva. The primary objective of this approach is to facilitate behavioural change and prioritise hand hygiene action at the exact times needed to prevent the transmission of pathogens and avoid harm to patients and health workers during care delivery. Importantly, the Five Moments approach overcomes some relevant barriers to hand hygiene practices identified before its launch, such as long lists for hand hygiene action without any consideration of the dynamics of patient, health worker and environmental interactions.5 The originality of the concept was to take both microbial transmission risk and human factors into account, and present an effective way to clean hands at the...
Source: Quality and Safety in Health Care - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Editorials Source Type: research