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The Department of Health (DH), through a series of events and promotional materials, is calling for healthcare workers and the public to pay attention to hand hygiene in support of the annual Hand Hygiene Awareness Day on May 5.
Proper hand hygiene is a key element to prevent infection not only in healthcare settings but also in the community. Since 2005, Hong Kong has pledged support for the World Health Organization (WHO)'s First Global Patient Safety Challenge "Clean Care is Safer Care", and has committed to promoting good hand hygiene to control the spread of infectious diseases. Hand Hygiene Awareness Day has been held annually in Hong Kong on May 5 since 2010 to raise awareness of hand hygiene in both healthcare settings and the community.
This year, the WHO's newly launched theme is "See Your Hands - hand hygiene supports safe surgical care". The focus is on the role of hand hygiene for surgical patients, from their admission to discharge.
Due to the nature of the treatment received, surgical patients are at risk of healthcare-associated infections, in particular surgical site infections and device-associated infections. Modern surgery involving foreign bodies including artificial heart valves and joint replacement makes hand hygiene of paramount importance in surgical infection control.
This new WHO message has been extensively promulgated to local surgical stream colleagues in both the public and private sectors and appeals for their support of this meaningful initiative.
To echo with the WHO's theme and in order to remind healthcare workers to make the WHO's "Five Moments for Hand Hygiene" a core practice to protect patients, the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the DH has developed a series of promotional materials to help to sustain hand hygiene practices among healthcare workers as well as staff of residential care homes for the elderly. In addition, hand hygiene compliance audits will be conducted both in public and private hospitals.
On the community side, the CHP has enhanced the "Five Moments" concept to "2 Before and 3 After" and encouraged the public to practice hand hygiene at the following times:
"2 Before":
1. Before taking medicine or eating food; and
2. Before touching the eyes, nose or mouth.
"3 After":
1. After going to the toilet;
2. After sneezing or coughing; and
3. After touching high-touch surfaces in public areas.
Promoting hand hygiene among the general public is also an important focus of the Hand Hygiene Awareness Day campaign. This year the CHP has expanded the target audience from healthcare workers to the general public with particular attention to students, aiming to build up hand hygiene awareness from a young age. Hand hygiene teaching materials are also being distributed to all kindergartens and primary and secondary schools.
For more information about hand hygiene, the public can visit the CHP's webpage at www.chp.gov.hk/en/content/9/460/19728.html.
Ends/Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Issued at HKT 18:09
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