On Wednesday, the medical staff at Northern Michigan Regional Hospital in Petoskey joined more than 8,000 health care facilities around the world in an effort to improve hand hygiene and patient care.

May 5 was the World Health Organization’s, Save Lives: Clean Your Hands day. The day focuses on proper hand hygiene and how it can prevent patient infections.

“In 2005, the World Health Organization started a campaign to improve hand hygiene globally,” explained Dr. Hugh Deery, who practices infectious disease medicine at the hospital. “What they found is that the same problems that exist in small villages in Africa happen here in the United States. The focus is to prevent health care infections, and that starts with proper hand hygiene.”

Deery and Patty Dallaire, a registered nurse, headed up the campaign at Northern Michigan Regional Hospital. Throughout the day, videos were shown at points around the hospital, and hand washing stations were set up to raise awareness.

“If every health care worker around the world used proper hand hygiene before and after they worked with a patient, millions of infections would be prevented,” Deery explained.

Deery hopes the campaign will force an ongoing dialog in the medical field. He feels the subject isn’t talked about enough.

“Thirty years ago if a patient and nurse were smoking in a room, you wouldn’t think much of it,” Deery said. “But imagine that now, it would never happen and if it did, you’d gasp in shock. I want that same level of awareness brought to hand hygiene.”

When it comes to hand washing, Deery suggests washing with soap and water long enough to sing Happy Birthday twice, or approximately 40-60 seconds while being sure to scrub thoroughly, including under fingernails. Those using an alcohol based hand solution should scrub between 20-30 seconds.
And there is one common misconception about hand washing.

“The temperature of the water doesn’t make an impact on cleaning,” Deery said. “In fact, water that is too hot can cause damage to the skin. Cold water and soap works just fine.”

The hospital has approximately 25 observers who keep an eye on hand washing throughout the hospital. They reported that the number of health care workers practicing proper hand hygiene has risen over the last three years.

“We are consistently in the 90-percent range, but it could always be better,” Deery said. “We’re doing fine here, but you have to continue to educate because patient safety is our number one goal.”