Infection control: Hand hygiene for non-clinical staff

There are many ways that infections can be passed between people. Infectious agents on hands is the most common way that patients develop healthcare associated infections.

Infections that people get while receiving healthcare (while in a healthcare facility) cause pain and suffering to patients, increase the rate of hospitalisations, cost Australia an estimate $600 million to a $1 billion per annum and can cause death.

Everyone working in a healthcare service needs to understand how to prevent the spread of infections.

There are three keys to helping to prevent the spread of infection in health services:

• Learning how to properly do hand hygiene
• Learning when to properly do hand hygiene
• Doing hand hygiene every time it is required

This module is about hand hygiene.

At the end of this module participants will be able to:

• Understand the basics of how infection is spread on hands.
• Know when to do hand hygiene.
• Do proper hand hygiene at the right time every time.
• Know how to help everyone improve hand hygiene.