CANADA: Timbits given as reward for handwashing

20.nov.07
Globe and Mail
Lisa Priest

Barfblog

In an effort to persuade hospital workers to properly clean their hands, a roaming posse of infection control staff at University Health Network, Canada's largest research hospital, will give a $2 Tim Hortons gift certificate to some of those caught cleaning their hands at its Princess Margaret, Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals.
Michael Gardam, the director of infection prevention and control for the University Health Network, was cited as saying the gesture, to begin later this month, is aimed at reducing the number of hospital-acquired methicillen-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections to zero, adding, "We're looking for a definite decrease in nosocomial [hospital-acquired] MRSA as that is primarily affected by hand hygiene. If all of our systems work appropriately, we theoretically should be able to get our hospital-acquired rate to zero."
The story says that hand hygiene is a crucial and obvious step to reducing infections, yet prodding those who provide care to scrub up has been maddeningly difficult: Only 40 per cent of Canadian health-care workers wash their hands properly.
Over the years, hospitals, keen to increase that figure, have installed alcohol hand rubs in hospital corridors and next to patient beds. Button and poster campaigns encouraging people to scrub up are dreamed up by those working in infection control.
Still, an estimated 220,000 patients suffer from hospital-acquired infections each year, according to the Canadian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance Program. Another study by that same group found one of 10 patients admitted to hospital leaves with an infection.
University Health Network's Dr. Gardam was cited as saying he got the idea after hearing how Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles offered $10 (U.S.) Starbucks gift certificates to doctors in a bid to increase hand hygiene compliance.