The Bay of Plenty District Health Board's drive for continuous improvement in patient care has seen it hit a new high in hand hygiene compliance.

The results of a five-month audit has seen the BOPDHB increase its hand hygiene compliance rate by more than 10 per cent and rise 14 places in the table of national DHBs to sixth.

Infection Control Coordinator Robyn Boyne, Director of Nursing Julie Robinson and District Nurse Rachael Robertson are celebrating Hand Hygiene Day in Tauranga Hospital.

Director of nursing Julie Robinson says the results reflected the BOPDHB's commitment to best practice.

'The result is representative of a lot of hard work.

'The improvement we have seen is fantastic but whilst we celebrate, this is a continuous journey and it's all about being the best for our patients.”

Hand hygiene is seen as key to fighting hospital-acquired infections (HAI) and a national DHB target of 70 per cent compliance with best practice has been set by the Health Quality and Safety Commission.

The BOPDHB registered 75.1 per cent in the results which cover the November 2013-March 2014 period. The national DHB average was 72.7 per cent.

Julie says a number of factors are behind the achievement.

'It's down to a lot of things: the frontline ownership by our staff; many of our senior nursing leaders becoming trained hand hygiene auditors (which reinforces its importance to staff).

"The continuous promotion of the hand hygiene message especially to those staff dealing directly with patients; departments which are excelling being encouraged to share their experiences with others looking to improve; and access to online education resources being made easier, are just some of those.

'In November, we also hosted the national lead for hand hygiene, Auckland District Health Board Clinical Microbiologist Dr Joshua Freeman, who presented to staff at Tauranga Hospital.”

During the audit process staff were assessed on their adherence to the ‘5 Moments of Hand Hygiene'.

The five key moments hands should be cleaned are: before touching a patient, before a procedure, after a procedure or bodily fluid risk, after touching a patient and after touching a patient's surroundings.

The new weekly BOPDHB Hand Hygiene Day will see the organisation's 36 hand hygiene champions, in Tauranga and Whakatane Hospitals, wear blue branded t-shirts at work every Monday to keep the importance of the hand hygiene message to the fore in a highly visible way.

'Hand hygiene is a simple effective way of reducing hospital-acquired infections and every staff member wants that,” says Julie.