The national hand hygiene campaign, based on World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines, involves building on substantial international experiences in reducing healthcare-acquired infections through education and culture change supported by the use of a validated hand hygiene compliance assessment tool and alcohol-based hand products.

Membership and role of the initial national project team

The initial national project team consisted of infectious disease physicians, clinical microbiologists, infection control specialists, nursing and medical clinicians and contracted project management and information technology (IT) support.  As the national development phase of the project progressed towards completion in 2010, the team membership evolved according to project requirements.
The national project team supported DHBs as they joined the national roll out and proceeded with local implementation activities.

Our platinum auditors and their portfolios

Five platinum (national auditors) were nominated by DHBs and trained and validated by Hand Hygiene New Zealand in February 2009.  The platinum auditors, who are all infection control specialists, were allocated DHB portfolios as summarised in the table below.

Platinum Auditor	DHBs in the auditor’s portfolio
Jo Stodart (Otago)	Southern, West Coast, South Canterbury, and Canterbury
Viv McEnnis (Capital and Coast)	Nelson-Marlborough, Capital and Coast, Hutt Valley, Wairarapa, Mid-Central, and Whanganui
Robyn Boyne (Bay of Plenty)	Lakes, Bay of Plenty, Tairawhiti, and Hawkes Bay
Lin Marriott (Waikato)	Waikato, Taranaki, and Counties Manukau
Christine Sieczkowski (Auckland)	Auckland, Waitemata, and Northland

Our platinum auditors perform a critical role in the development and maintenance of an ongoing, high quality, national audit of hand hygiene compliance. To fulfil this role, platinum auditors are trained, among other things, to:

• accurately measure hand hygiene compliance through the use of a hand hygiene compliance assessment tool
• undertake compliance assessment data collection, entry and analysis
• effectively present and disseminate the results of data analyses
• train the ‘gold auditors’ that will undertake compliance monitoring for each DHB.

Platinum auditors are in regular contact with each other to discuss issues and to ensure consistency of auditing practice nationally. The platinum auditor role may involve site visits to other DHBs to train and support gold auditors undertaking local compliance audits.

Platinum auditors remain available for email and telephone inquiries from hand hygiene coordinators and validated gold auditors, for example in relation to data collection and entry. As the platinum auditors have other fulltime jobs with their DHBs we ask that, before making an inquiry, you check the HHNZ draft guidelines to find the information you seek (ie, to keep the inquiry workload at a reasonable level).