toh
Hand Hygiene Compliance
Research shows that hand hygiene is the single most effective way to reduce the risk of health-care associated infections. Hand hygiene is a key issue for our hospital, and we continually work to improve compliance.
Patients can help improve their own safety
Hand hygiene involves everyone in the hospital, including patients. Hand cleaning is one of the best ways you and your health-care team can prevent the spread of many infections. Patients and their visitors should also practice good hand hygiene before and after entering patient rooms.
More patient-specific information is available at www.ontario.ca/patientsafety and www.oha.com/quality-safety-and-patient-and-family-centred-care and www.oha.com/Documents/English%20-%20Pamphlet.pdf.
Measuring compliance rates
The Ottawa Hospital regularly audits health care professionals to ensure they are performing hand hygiene the right way at the right time. The results of these audits are continually reported internally to individual patient units, and to the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care yearly.
Hand hygiene compliance rates at The Ottawa Hospital
Hand Hygiene: Number of times Hand Hygiene performed Before initial Patient / Pt Environment Contact
Civic Campus | General Campus | The Rehabilitation Centre | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH |
Fiscal Year 2017-18 | 3083 | 3123 | 98.7% | 3816 | 3923 | 97.3% | 115 | 115 | 100.0% |
Fiscal Year 2018-19 | 1478 | 1504 | 98.3% | 1507 | 1541 | 97.8% | 114 | 144 | 100.0% |
Fiscal Year 2019-20 | 1129 | 1179 | 95.8% | 1179 | 1223 | 96.4% | 58 | 58 | 100.0% |
Fiscal Year 2020-21 | 1499 | 1653 | 90.7% | 1588 | 1766 | 89.9% | 20 | 25 | 80.0% |
Fiscal Year 2021-22 | 3598 | 4849 | 74.2% | 3187 | 4470 | 71.3% | 386 | 483 | 79.9% |
Fiscal Year 2022-23 | 3018 | 3518 | 85.8% | 2099 | 2526 | 83.1% | 147 | 191 | 77.0% |
Fiscal Year 2023-24 | 2668 | 3258 | 81.9% | 2994 | 3477 | 86.1% | 267 | 308 | 86.7% |
Fiscal Year 2024-25 | 3142 | 4235 | 74.2% | 1981 | 2846 | 69.6% | 5470/td> | 7472 | 73.2% |
Hand Hygiene: Number of times Hand Hygiene performed After Patient / Pt Environment Contact
Civic Campus | General Campus | The Rehabilitation Centre | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH |
Fiscal Year 2017-18 | 2871 | 2933 | 97.9% | 3949 | 4108 | 96.1% | 121 | 121 | 100.0% |
Fiscal Year 2018-19 | 1528 | 1560 | 97.9% | 1603 | 1651 | 97.1% | 138 | 138 | 100.0% |
Fiscal Year 2019-20 | 1233 | 1288 | 95.7% | 1333 | 1363 | 97.8% | 66 | 66 | 100.0% |
Fiscal Year 2020-21 | 1402 | 1481 | 94.7% | 1362 | 1444 | 94.3% | 18 | 20 | 90.0% |
Fiscal Year 2021-22 | 4408 | 5125 | 86.0% | 5604 | 6464 | 86.7% | 557 | 664 | 83.9% |
Fiscal Year 2022-23 | 3445 | 3724 | 92.5% | 3038 | 3350 | 90.7% | 207 | 234 | 88.5% |
Fiscal Year 2023-24 | 3632 | 4004 | 90.7% | 3911 | 4317 | 90.6% | 264 | 300 | 88.0% |
Fiscal Year 2024-25 | 4123 | 4902 | 84.1% | 3698 | 4554 | 81.2% | 227/td> | 279 | 81.4% |
Hand Hygiene: Number of times Hand Hygiene performed Before Aseptic Procedure
Civic Campus | General Campus | The Rehabilitation Centre | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH |
Fiscal Year 2021-22 | 9 | 20 | 45.0% | 14 | 21 | 66.7% | 0 | 0 | – |
Fiscal Year 2022-23 | 884 | 1089 | 81.2% | 19 | 39 | 48.7% | 0 | 0 | – |
Fiscal Year 2023-24 | 34 | 75 | 45.3% | 32 | 64 | 50.0% | 0 | 0 | n/a |
Fiscal Year 2024-25 | 3 | 16 | 18.8% | 4 | 20 | 20.0% | 0 | 0 | n/a |
Hand Hygiene: Number of times Hand Hygiene performed After Body Fluid Exposure Risk
Civic Campus | General Campus | The Rehabilitation Centre | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH | HH Performed | # Observations | % Compliance with HH |
Fiscal Year 2021-22 | 10 | 13 | 76.9% | 25 | 36 | 69.4% | 0 | 0 | – |
Fiscal Year 2022-23 | 781 | 1067 | 73.2% | 45 | 58 | 77.6% | 3 | 3 | 100% |
Fiscal Year 2023-24 | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | 5 | 5 | 100.0% | 0 | 0 | n/a |
Fiscal Year 2024-25 | 0 | 7 | 0.0% | 5 | 11 | 45.5% | 0 | 0 | n/a |
Last updated on: April 24th, 2025