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Hand hygiene and the use of gowns and gloves are key components of contact precautions. Recent studies have shown that compliance with these practices varies greatly among institutions. Now, in a prospective investigation using “anonymous undercover observers” in intensive care unit (ICU) and non-ICU settings at 11 hospitals, researchers have examined whether the relative proportion of patients placed on contact precautions in a facility might be one factor contributing to such practice variation.
For a total of 1013 healthcare-worker observations, overall compliance was 28.9% for all five of the components tracked (37.2%, 74.3%, 80.1%, 80.1%, and 61.0%, respectively, for hand hygiene before donning gown and gloves, gowning on entering the p…