November 8, 2002

Improving hand hygiene practice is an important priority at the MGH. It directly helps patients because it reduces the incidence of nosocomial or hospital-acquired infections. It also protects employees and staff by decreasing the spread of infections among MGHers.

While the MGH Hand Hygiene Program has been in effect for a couple of years to help educate and inform MGHers about proper hand hygiene, there still is more work to be done to further reduce infections. A group of house officers on the Bigelow Teaching Service recently joined together to help with the effort.

Called the House Officer Initiated Hygiene Against Nosocomial Disease or HI-HAND, the group is leading a friendly competition among the four Bigelow house staff medical teams to improve hand hygiene practices before and after patient contact.

The results of the competition will aid in a research project that Bigelow house officers traditionally conduct during their training on the service. The house officer research is being performed in collaboration with the MGH Infection Control Unit to collect data about hand hygiene practices at the MGH and to ultimately improve hand hygiene compliance.

Above, Larry Allen, MD, right, presents the hand hygiene research project at a house officer meeting with Ethan Korngold, MD. The hand statue will be used to track the competition.