HAYES RA, TRICK WE, VERNON MO, NATHAN C, PETERSON BJ, SEGRETI J, PUR SL, SCHMITT BA, RICE TW, WELBEL SF, WEINSTEIN RA; Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (41st : 2001 : Chicago, Ill.).

Abstr Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2001 Dec 16-19; 41: abstract no. K-1337.

Cook County Hosp., Chicago, IL

BACKGROUND: To improve HH in hospitals, novel methods of hand antisepsis have been designed. METHODS: We compared three methods: antimicrobial hand wipe (AW), soap and water (SW), and a 62% ethyl alcohol gel (AL). We evaluated efficacy of these agents when used by registered nurses (RNs) in a 27 bed SICU. We cultured 66 RNs on 282 occasions using a glove juice technique. We randomly sampled a hand; the RN used a randomized HH method, and then we sampled the opposite hand. Selective media were inoculated with resuspended organisms from the filtered glove juice to detect hand contamination by several organism categories: methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci (MRCoNS), gram-negative bacilli (GNB), Staphylococcus aureus (SA), Candida species (CS), and vancomycin resistant enterococci. We adjusted for potential risk factors (skin condition, dominant hand, glove use, rings, nail length, nail applications, and number of assigned patients) in multivariate analyses. RESULTS: Contamination by any transient organism (MRCoNS excluded) was 32% before HH, 30% after SW, 28% after AW, and 13% after AL. By multivariate analysis, RN hand contamination was less likely after AL use for each organism category: MRCoNS, OR=.53, p<0.001; GNB, OR=.40, p=0.06; SA, OR=.52, p=0.17; CS, OR=.26, p=0.03; or any of the transient flora, OR=.31, p=0.001. CONCLUSION: In a clinical setting, AL reduced the frequency of hand contamination by potential pathogens.

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• Enterococcus
• Gloves, Protective
• Gram-Negative Bacteria
• Hand
• Humans
• Hygiene
• Intensive Care Units
• Soaps
• Staphylococcus aureus
• methods

Other ID:

• GWAIDS0029584

UI: 102269216

From Meeting Abstracts