Impact of COVID-19 pandemic waves on health-care worker hand hygiene activity in department of medicine and ICU as measured by an automated monitoring system

Abstract

Background

Hand hygiene (HH) compliance among health-care workers is important for preventing transmission of infectious diseases.

Aim

To describe health-care worker hand hygiene activity in ICU and non-ICU patients’ rooms, using an automated monitoring system (AMS), before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

At the Intercommunal Hospital of Créteil, near Paris, France, alcohol-based hand sanitizer (ABHS) consumption in the Department of Medicine (DM) and ICU was recorded using an AMS during four periods: before, during, and after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and during its second wave.

Findings

From 1st February to 30th November 2020, in the DM, the mean number of doses per patient-day for each of the four periods was, respectively, 5.7 (±0.3), 19.4 (±1.3), 17.6 (±0.7), and 7.9 (±0.2, P < 0.0001). In contrast, ICU ABHS consumption remained relatively constant. In the DM, during the pandemic waves, ABHS consumption was higher in rooms of COVID-19 patients than in other patients’ rooms. Multivariate analysis showed ABHS consumption was associated with the period in the DM, and with the number of HCWs in the ICU.

Conclusion

An AMS allows real-time collection of ABHS consumption data that can be used to adapt training and prevention measures to specific hospital departments.