Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil has PD celebration and publishes in AJIC!

In early May, healthcare professionals from Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil had a PD celebration in the Oncology/Hematology Unit. Throughout the week, all doctors were approached to perform hand hygiene with alcohol gel hand rubs before enter the patient's room and they received some instructions about hand hygiene. The same group from Albert Einstein also recently published an article in the American Journal of Infection Control which investigates the use of the PD approach to increase compliance with hand hygiene by healthcare professionals.

The article, entitled Positive deviance: Using a nurse call system to evaluate hand hygiene practices, investigates the use of the PD approach to increase compliance with hand hygiene by healthcare professionals. The study concluded that “the PD approach to hand hygiene produced positive results in terms of compliance to this practice, with increased consumption of alcohol hand rubs, improved ratio of alcohol rub use to nurse visits to patient rooms in the east SDU, and a >2 ratio in both the east and west Step Down Units. In addition, the use of this approach led to a reduction in the rate of device-related infections in both units, with sustained results over 2 years.” The full article can be read here:Positive deviance: Using a nurse call system to evaluate hand hygiene practices.

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