Patient hand hygiene is a commonsense measure that has been associated with reductions in colonization or infection with bacterial and viral pathogens in quasi-experimental studies. We conducted a nonblinded pilot randomized trial to assess the impact of an educational patient hand hygiene intervention on acquisition of colonization by selected health care-associated pathogens in hospitalized patients. For patients with negative admission cultures, the intervention did not reduce the new acquisition of colonization by pathogens compared with that of standard care.
Keywords: Candida species; Fluoroquinolone-resistance; Methicillin-resistant; Staphylococcus aureus; Vancomycin-resistant enterococci.
Published by Elsevier Inc.