Four Atlanta hospitals raised measured hand hygiene adherence from 41 percent to 57 percent over 21 months, and detections of drug-resistant organisms did not fall. That is the finding of a new analysis from Emory University School of Medicine researchers, and it is worth stating carefully because it is easy to misread.
The study did not find that hand hygiene fails to prevent infection. It found that within these hospitals, over this period, unit-level adherence rates and unit-level detection rates did not track each other in the way infection prevention teams expected. The authors were explicit that this does not undercut the practice.
