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Hand Hygiene Course for ongoing challenges in Care settings

Blog posts | 29.03.2021

Simon Sentance

Kineo Courses, Product Owner at Kineo AU

Hand Hygiene for Healthcare Workers is our second most popular elearning course in our top ten series. It is our number one health care title in our elearning course library. This comes as no surprise as 2020 was overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The importance of hand hygiene practices such as washing hands and using hand sanitiser has been promoted via posters in public places, in workspaces and are commonplace online. Continuing to practise good hand hygiene needs to be a fundamental habit to prevent the spread of infection.   

In this blog we will focus on infection control in the care industry because of the high risks. Let’s dive into the startling Healthcare infection facts:  


The scale of healthcare related infections   

1 in 10 patients will get an infection while in care. The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports effective infection prevention and control will reduce health care-associated infections by 30%.  

Globally, hundreds of millions of patients are exposed to the effects of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) each year. To gather required data to provide an accurate report is a challenge. WHO is dedicated to the prevention of healthcare associated infections and continues to invest in the established Clean Care is Safer Care program.  WHO stresses the significance of the problem of infections in health care across the world: 

“The problem is huge: it is estimated that there are over 1.4 million cases of HAI at any given time, although this is likely to be a gross underestimation, due to the lack of proper surveillance. Across all settings, patients can acquire bloodstream infections, surgical site infections, urinary tract infections, chest/respiratory infections or gastrointestinal infections. Health-care workers are often the conduit for the spread of such infections to other patients in their care.” 

WHO also underlines the importance of clean hands in the patient safety agenda: 

“Hand hygiene contributes significantly to keeping patients safe. It is a simple, low-cost action to prevent the spread of many of the microbes that cause HAIs. While hand hygiene is not the only measure to counter HAI, compliance with it alone can dramatically enhance patient safety, because there is much scientific evidence showing that microbes causing HAI are most frequently spread between patients on the hands of health-care workers.”

As a specialist Aged Care and Healthcare learning provider, Kineo partners with subject matter experts and learning content is endorsed by industry leaders. Released in 2018, Hand Hygiene for Healthcare Workers is a short 20 minute hand hygiene training. This practical control and prevention course informs care workers about how they can reduce the transmission of pathogenic microorganisms.   

We know that all Aged Care and Healthcare workers understand the requirements of good hand hygiene for disease control and prevention. The learning modules remind us what good practice looks like and how to implement the required behaviours and minimise the spread of germs.  

The likelihood of somebody becoming infected is drastically reduced when people perform hand hygiene correctly and at the right times. Hand Hygiene for Healthcare Workers provides an understanding of:  

  • the role hand hygiene plays in preventing and controlling infection  
  • how to perform hand hygiene according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines  
  • when to use alcohol-based hand rub (ABHR) or soap and water, and  
  • when hand hygiene is necessary.  


Infection prevention and control  

When looking at the bigger picture with infection prevention and control, Aged Care facility settings are at the highest risk of all. For example, residents with Dementia require higher levels of support in their daily hand washing habits.   

Hand Hygiene for Healthcare Workers is one module in a full course suite: Infection Prevention and Control course: Transmission Based Precautions   

Thank you to our Kineo learners that have already benefited from this course. If your care force learners are ready for a refresh, join our community of over 100,000 learners that rate Kineo’s learning library 4.5/5.  Together, let’s help to stop and control the spread of infection.  

  

Simon Sentance

Kineo Courses, Product Owner at Kineo AU


Simon looks after the Kineo Courses product offering in APAC. Simon and his Adelaide-based team are taking a big step beyond the cookie cutter approach of many off-the-shelf eLearning products available today. Their goal is to develop workplace online training designed to drive behavioural change and deliver measurable impact for your business.