Join Diversey in celebrating World Hand Hygiene Day on May 5th.
As members of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Private Organizations for Patient Safety (POPS), Diversey is committed to raising the awareness of hand hygiene’s importance through this year's World Hand Hygiene Day campaign on 5th May, themed "Seconds Save Lives: Clean Your Hands".
Seconds Save Lives: a message that resonates globally more than ever before.
The theme of this year’s campaign focuses on the importance of ensuring that proper hand hygiene is carried out by healthcare workers at the point of care, and puts emphasis on the effectiveness this simple and quick action has in preventing the transmission of infectious microorganisms during health care delivery - helping save lives.
Today we all know this message is not only relevant and applicable to healthcare workers, but a powerful statement that resonates beyond borders and across professions. During the pandemic, we have learned how appropriate hand hygiene reduces the risk of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) infection among health workers and helps prevent the spread of infection across different settings. But this is just one example; appropriate hand hygiene actually prevents up to 50% of avoidable infections acquired during health care delivery.
Part of the effort of this year’s campaign is in raising awareness across a wide variety of stakeholders, given we all play a part in contributing to save lives through effective hand hygiene. Within the healthcare system, it’s not only incumbent on healthcare professionals to perform effective hand hygiene at the point of care, but other groups such as IPC practitioners need to play their role in mentoring; and facility managers need to ensure continuous availability of supplies. Finally, patients, families and visitors need to also ensure effective hand hygiene is performed at all times.
There are also other stakeholders who can play an active role in saving lives through effective hand hygiene. From policy makers, who need to ensure the required investment is in place, to all of us, who need to make effective hand hygiene a habit in our daily lives.
How can healthcare professionals get involved and contribute to raising awareness and improving standards.
More than 15 years ago, the WHO initiated its first Global Patient Safety challenge: “Clean Care is Safer Care’. The success of this program was strengthened with the launch of the global campaign “SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands” in 2009. Since then, we have been celebrating World Hand Hygiene Day on May 5th to raise awareness for hand hygiene and improve the practice among healthcare workers. By performing hand hygiene at the right time and in the right way, healthcare workers can prevent the spread of germs and illness and possible death.
This year, the WHO specifically calls on health care facilities to achieve effective hand hygiene action at the point of care. The point of care refers to the place where three elements come together: the patient, the health care worker, and care or treatment involving contact with the patient or their surroundings. To be effective and prevent transmission of infectious microorganisms during health care delivery, hand hygiene should be performed when it is needed (at five specific moments) and in the most effective way (by using the right technique, with readily available products) at the point of care.
If you are a Healthcare professional, we at Diversey encourage you to show your healthcare’s facility commitment to hand hygiene improvement at the point of care by signing up for the “Save Lives: Clean your Hands” campaign.
Diversey Proudly Supports World Hand Hygiene Day For The 9th Consecutive Year.
Our support to WHO on May 5 is part of our partnership with the World Health Organization through the "Private Organizations for Patient Safety" initiative. POPS is a collaborative initiative whose long-term aim is to harness industry strengths to align and improve implementation of WHO recommendations in different parts of the world, including in least developed countries.
We are here to help during these uncertain times.
Apart from offering our support and expertise in hand hygiene, Diversey has a complete set of hand disinfection and hygiene products to help everyone take the best possible precautions against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Our globally-trusted hand care formulations are widely used in hospitals, care homes and other settings where infection prevention is critical. They include a complete set of color-coded soaps, disinfectants, sanitizers, and creams meeting a wide range of international infection prevention standards.
While effective products are key, they are only part of the solution. The aim is to make it easy for anyone to achieve effective hand hygiene whenever it’s required. Professional dispensers offer many long-term benefits. These include consistent individual dosing, higher capacity and number of doses thanks to adjustable dose settings, and reliability. They also have features to help maintain continuous product availability and are less likely to go missing. They can be mounted on walls in key locations or on adjustable floor stands when portability is required. Floor stands offer the additional advantage of adjustable height which can be important across other settings, such as schools, with younger or shorter children. They are also ideal for settings where people are likely to be in wheelchairs.
Diversey’s new IntelliCare dispenser system, for example, offers contactless performance but switches to manual operation if its batteries become discharged, ensuring it can still be used. The risk of this ever happening is greatly reduced because the equipment can alert cleaning team members when the battery or product levels get too low. They can then take action to maintain product availability.
Learn more about our Intellicare Hand Hygiene platform in our Infection Prevention Section or fill out the form below.
1 Source: World Health Organization
2 Source: World Health Organization. To learn more about it, you can access this link from WHO, which provides you with a set of case studies from health-care facilities across the world sharing their experiences and initiatives to improve hand hygiene, reduce health care-associated infection and save lives.