Welcome to the Hand Hygiene New Zealand website.
The Hand Hygiene New Zealand project is one of the three Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) projects which are part of the wider health sector's National Quality Improvement Programme (NQIP).
International evidence is clear that improved hand hygiene practices contribute substantially to reducing healthcare acquired infections, including antibiotic-resistant infections within hospitals.
Chapter five of the Ministry of Health 2006 publication ‘Scoping Priorities for Quality Improvement in the Health and Disability Sector’ sets out the national programme for infection prevention and control and notes that:
• The most simple and effective means of avoiding infections is good hand hygiene.
• Failure to comply with hand hygiene:
- is the leading cause of healthcare associated infections
- contributes to the spread of multi-resistant organisms
- is a significant contributor to infection outbreaks.
The Hand Hygiene New Zealand project approach involves a culture change programme and is based on the May 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) ‘Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care’ and the associated WHO’ guidance publication ‘Guide to the Implementation of the WHO Multimodal Hand Hygiene Improvement Strategy. Copies of these WHO publications can be downloaded by clicking on the following links:
WHO Hand Hygiene Guide.pdf 
WHO Implementation Guide.pdf
The WHO Guidelines are clear that the features of a successful hand hygiene campaign include:
• the promotion and proper use of alcohol-based hand products at the point of care
• repeated and high quality audit/monitoring of compliance and timely performance feedback
• communication and education tools
• constant reminders in the work environment
• active participation and feedback at both individual and organisational levels
• senior management support and involvement of sector leaders.
Consistent with the WHO Guidelines, Hand Hygiene New Zealand identifies the following five ‘moments’ for hand hygiene as critical to the prevention and control of infections. These are:
1. Before patient contact.
2. Before a procedure.
3. After a procedure or body fluid exposure risk.
4. After patient contact.
5. After contact with patient surroundings.
The Hand Hygiene New Zealand project will build upon and support the further development of established hand hygiene approaches within District Health Boards (DHBs).
Stage one roll-out
Three District Health Boards (DHBs) participated in the first stage of the Hand Hygiene New Zealand roll-out which commenced in mid-October 2008. The stage one DHBs, Auckland, Waikato and Tairawhiti, have made good progress and the practical experiences gained from the implementation activities continue to inform ongoing rollout activities.
Stage two roll out
Stage two of the hand hygiene project roll-out, for the remaining 18 DHBs, commenced in February 2009. The ‘timetable’ section of this website includes a summary of implementation activities to be undertaken by participating DHBs. The stage 2 DHBs are also making progress, but at varying rates according to their circumstances and the resources they are able to apply to implementing a hand hygiene campaign.
