Providence Health Care Patient/Resident Hand Cleaning Consultation

Preventing health care acquired infections is highly reliant on hand hygiene. Typically, the emphasis has been on hand cleaning by health care workers; we are interested in learning how hand cleaning was important to you and your family during your care experience in a hospital or a residential care facility.

Open to: Patient partners across the province

Lead Organization or Department

Providence Health Care, Risk Management and Infection Prevention and Control

Aim

Providence Health wants to get feedback from patients, residents and family members about their ability to conveniently and effectively clean their hands during their stay in hospital and/or residential care. We want to understand barriers and identify suggestions for improvement through understanding your experience of hand hygiene.

Level of Engagement

This opportunity is at the level of consult on the spectrum of engagement (www.iap2.org). The promise to you is that the health care partner will look to you for advice in decision making, developing alternatives, and solutions and include your recommendations into the decision as much as possible.

Eligibility

• Patients, residents or family members who experienced a length of long enough to recognize the importance of hand cleaning and to share barriers experienced and recommendations to remove them. Experience can be from any facility, does not need to be a Providence Health site.
• Preference is for those who received teaching from staff on correct procedure for hand cleaning based on the type of precautions they were on and if the facilities were available to them to do the hand washing, as well as those who had an experience when hand cleaning was needed but not provided, or who experienced a situation where they asked or wanted to ask health care workers if they cleaned their hands.
• Comfort sharing your story.
• Patients should have previously attended a PVN orientation session and signed the Volunteer Agreement. If you have not attended an orientation but are interested, please contact the Engagement Leader directly to see if accommodations may be possible.

Logistics

• Vacancies: 10+
• Anticipating 2-3 initial meetings/teleconferences (2 hours each), and then 1-2 follow-up meetings (1 hour each) to verify information and recommendations. Time will be based on availability of patient partners.
• If in-person meetings are held, they will be at St. Paul’s Hospital in a room with teleconference capability. There will be an option to participate by answering online surveys with the questions used in the focus groups.

Reimbursement

Preapproved expenses related to local travel (i.e. transit, parking up to $18/day, approved mileage) to attend in person meetings will be reimbursed by Providence Health Care. No anticipated expenses for patient partners outside of the Lower Mainland who participate by teleconference or online.

Background

According to Infection Prevention and Control Canada, hand hygiene refers to removing or killing microorganisms (germs) on the hands. Hand hygiene may be performed either by using soap and running water, or with alcohol-based hand rubs. When performed correctly, hand hygiene is the single most effective way to prevent the spread of communicable diseases and infections. In health care, hand hygiene is used to remove germs that have been picked up by contact with patients, contaminated equipment or the environment. Previously, the focus of most hand hygiene work has been from the perspective of providers. Providence Health Care is looking to get a better understanding of patient, resident and family experience of hand hygiene.

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Karen Estrin
Engagement Leader, Patient and Public Engagement | Lower Mainland & Sunshine Coast
604.668.8245
kestrin@bcpsqc.ca