Many hospitals in the United States are seeking to achieve the Leapfrog Group Hand Hygiene Standard as a key strategic goal. According to The Leapfrog Group, the Leapfrog hand hygiene standard focuses on adherence to “best practice” hand hygiene practices. We are delighted that Leapfrog has now approved that SureWash can be used for the initial hand hygiene demonstration required in question #2 in Section 6D: Hand Hygiene, of the Leapfrog Hospital Survey.
How to achieve the Leapfrog Hand Hygiene Standard
Leapfrog’s hand hygiene standard includes five domains. Hospitals now have two options to achieve the standard:
Option 1:
Each hospital achieving the standard meets all elements for the Monitoring domain. They must also collect compliance data on at least 200 hand hygiene opportunities each month in each patient care unit. In addition, they must meet all elements of the Feedback domain, as well as 2 of the 3 remaining domains for hand hygiene:
- Training and Education Domain
- Infrastructure Domain
- Culture Domain
Option 2:
Each hospital achieving the standard meets all elements of the Monitoring domain. They must also collect compliance data on at least 100 hand hygiene opportunities each month in each patient care unit. In addition, they must achieve all 4 remaining domains for hand hygiene:
- Feedback Domain
- Training and Education Domain
- Infrastructure Domain
- Culture Domain
In this option, hospitals must achieve the Training and Education Domain, questions #1-3.
SureWash’s Role in helping you achieve the Leapfrog Hand Hygiene Standards
The role of SureWash in helping you achieve the Leapfrog Hand Hygiene Standard is primarily in the Training & Education domain. However, our hand hygiene training technology is also a clear contributor to achieving the Culture domain.
Training and Education Domain
There is now a significantly greater emphasis placed on the Training and Education domain when achieving the Leapfrog Hand Hygiene Standard. As part of the standard, Leapfrog have now confirmed that SureWash can be used for the physical demonstration of hand hygiene for the purposes of question #2 in Section 6D Hand Hygiene of the Leapfrog Hospital Survey.* Therefore, the SureWash training system now helps infection prevention and control (IPC) personnel answer ‘yes’ to every element of this domain:
- ✓ Hand hygiene training at the time of onboarding and annually
- ✓ Demonstration of hand hygiene technique*
- ✓ Hand hygiene education on all 6 of the following topics:
- ✓ Evidence linking hand hygiene and infection prevention
- ✓ The 5 moments for hand hygiene
- ✓ How to clean your hands with alcohol-based hand sanitizer / hand soap
- ✓ When to use gloves and perform hand hygiene
- ✓ The minimum time that should be spent performing hand hygiene with soap and water and alcohol-based hand sanitizer
- ✓ How hand hygiene compliance is monitored
*There is now a change in the Leapfrog FAQ’s which confirms that SureWash can be used for the initial hand hygiene demonstration
“Hand Hygiene FAQ, Q.36: What are examples of what can count as “physically demonstrating” proper hand hygiene during the initial hand hygiene training?
Before new individuals to your hospital have contact with patients and the patient care space, they will need to demonstrate proper hand hygiene with soap and water and alcohol-based hand sanitizer. This demonstration could be done as part of other onboarding activities, during occupational health activities as part of the TB test, during department orientations, in small groups, etc. A group “teach-back” would be acceptable, but with no more than 10 students per one trainer/monitor. An online or in-person “simulation” would not be sufficient for this purpose. Computer-based assessments of an individual’s hand hygiene technique are acceptable if the assessment tracks an individual’s hand motions, is done without providing instructions to the individual during the assessment, and feedback is given to them at the end.“ – Access Hospital Survey
Culture
SureWash is also a clear contributor to the Leapfrog Culture domain. SureWash helps improve hand hygiene culture by empowering staff and providing interactive and accessible education. By senior management training on SureWash themselves and by publishing aggregated reports, they convey to staff their commitment to improving hand hygiene.
In addition, to remind healthcare workers to perform hand hygiene, you can use SureWash as a promotional device by customizing SureWash attract loops with your facilities call-to-action. Also, patients and visitors can use the SureWash device to learn about the importance of hand hygiene.
About SureWash
SureWash delivers hand hygiene technique training to the World Health Organization (WHO) protocol. It can provide initial training and assessment at the time of onboarding and also refresher training. Medical staff, technicians, and environmental services personnel can all use the SureWash technology. In addition, a reporting function is available (SureWash.Net) to highlight when refresher training is due and to also generate reports for inspections.
The SureWash computer-based training device objectively assesses the users’ hand hygiene technique to the standard of a human assessor by tracking the hand motions, and providing real-time feedback. Therefore, use of the SureWash device allows staff to demonstrate proper hand hygiene in their own time, enabling infection preventionists to focus their time on other critical tasks.
SureWash also facilitates education on broader IPC topics. For example, Leapfrog requires education on WHO’s 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene, glove use, hand hygiene monitoring and more. Facilities can either use SureWash’s lesson and quiz content developed with clinical experts to meet these requirements, or you can upload your own content to the SureWash device.
To access our full leapfrog document, click here. This will explain in further detail how we help your hospital achieve the Leapfrog Group Hand Hygiene Standard.
Contact Us
If you would like a quote, or if you have any questions regarding our role in helping you achieve the Leapfrog Hand Hygiene Standard, please contact us below:
