Tailor the Evidence-based Practice Veteran Health Administration (VHA) Hand Hygiene (HH) Bundle for Acute Mental Health Care Settings and Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance (QUE 25-023)
VA Office of Research and Development
Summary
Mental health settings are particularly vulnerable to outbreaks and transmission due to infectious pathogens like norovirus. This occurs since access to soap and water (sinks) is limited for safety reasons and alcohol hand rub is not available outside patient rooms because of concerns for ingestion and fire. Thus, novel hand hygiene improvement interventions are needed in mental health settings including new hand hygiene bundles tailored to VHA mental health settings and novel alcohol-free hand rubs that are safe for installation and use in mental health settings. Non-alcohol hand rub has been approved and is currently used in some VAs, but isn't currently a standard VA-wide practice. These products can expand access to hand hygiene in locations where alcohol-based products are not allowed.
Description
The aim of this project is to develop tailored HH bundles (i.e., strategies) that will streamline the implementation process of antimicrobial stewardship by assessing and addressing challenges due to structural characteristics of the mental health facilities, its perceived compatibility, and the characteristics of the healthcare workers to facilitate HH compliance to combat Healthcare Acquired Infections (HAIs). The VA standard HH bundle includes -directive 1131 requires all VA's follow the following criteria: (1) Implementing, at a minimum, categories IA, IB and IC of the most current CDC ha…