Hand Hygiene Compliance at a Canadian provincial cancer centre - the complementary roles of nurse auditor-driven and patient auditor-driven audit processes and impact upon practice in ambulatory cancer care

Abstract

Background: We examined the patterns of hand hygiene compliance (HHC) among health care providers (HCP) as observed by trained nurse and patient auditors over time in an ambulatory care Canadian provincial cancer agency.

Methods: Nurse and volunteer patient auditors completed separate standardized forms documenting hand-cleansing opportunities during clinic visits. HHC rates were compared over time by HCP group and by specialty teams. Observations from 10 calendar quarters were analyzed from April 2015 to September 2019.

Results: Nurse audit HHC rates ranged from 84% to 96%, encompassing 7,213 opportunities with no significant time-dependent trends by linear regression (R² = 2.3E-005, P = .9895). The patient audit HHC rates ranged from 57% to 82%, encompassing 23,402 opportunities, were lower overall compared to the nurse audit (73.6% vs 89.2%, respectively, P < .0001), but displayed an increasing trend (R² = 0.5374, P = .0159) over the same 10 time periods. The relative risk ratio for the differences decreased over time (R² = .5101, P = .0203). Patients acknowledged the importance of HHC and the audit process, but were reticent to remind HCP to comply.

Conclusions: The nurse audit measuring HCP HHC before entering and after exiting patient examination rooms showed persistently high compliance over time whereas the patient-driven audit measuring HHC within the examination room increased over time suggesting a training effect upon practice. These measures appeared complementary.

Keywords: Hand cleansing; Oncology; Outpatient; Patient empowerment; Patient monitor; Patient observation.