The Carilion Clinic Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) team is engaging patients in the outpatient hand hygiene program. Infection prevention is a team effort, and everyone, including patients, has a role to play. Hand hygiene is the most crucial strategy for preventing infections, and through this program, Carilion is committed to providing the best patient care.

The Patient Feedback Monitoring Program invites patients at ambulatory sites to provide feedback on their providers’ hand hygiene. During their visits, patients receive feedback cards where they can indicate “yes,” “no,” or “unsure” if their provider performed hand hygiene before initiating physical contact. These data are compiled into a Tableau dashboard and shared with sites in real-time to evaluate compliance. The goal of this program is to highlight the importance of hand hygiene in the clinical setting and empower patients to be allies and advocates for infection prevention. 

Since the program’s creation, the Carilion Clinic IPC team has been actively engaging ambulatory clinics and promoting the initiative, setting a goal for each clinic to submit 40 observations per month. Collaborating with the marketing and technology departments, the team ensured that the observation tools are accessible. The total number of outpatient hand hygiene observations increased from 12,311 in 2022 to 17,033 in 2023. As of July 2024, outpatient clinics have already collected 11,259 observations, and the year is only half over!