In response to the global annual initiative of “Save Lives: Clean Your Hands” launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) commissioned two hospitals in Taiwan, including National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), to set up hand hygiene demonstration centers.Recently, WHO announced NTUH as the winner of its Asia Pacific Hand Hygiene Excellence Award in the developed country division for the year 2011.Representatives from NTUH will travel to Melbourne, Australia to received the award at the 5th International Congress of the Asia Pacific Society of Infection Control in this coming November.The Asia Pacific Hand Hygiene Excellence Award was created in 2010 by WHO in association with the Asia Pacific Society of Infection Control, Aesculap Academy and Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG) to recognize efforts made by hospitals in support of the WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: Clean Care is Safer Care.

As early as April, 2004, NTUH began promoting hand hygiene in the hospital.In 2010, when NTUH was commissioned by Taiwan CDC to establish a hand hygiene demonstration center, NTUH was committed to promoting hand hygiene in patient care and utilized the “Guide to implementation of the WHO Multimodal Hand Hygiene Improvement Strategy” and other tools published by WHO to improve compliance with hand hygiene among healthcare workers in the hospital.In May, 2011, NTUH applied for the Asia Pacific Hand Hygiene Excellence Award.In July of the same year, NTUH was notified by the organizer that it was being nominated as one of the finalists for the Asia Pacific Hand Hygiene Excellence Award 2011. A visit by the expert review panel to NTUH was made to assess the results of the hand hygiene promotion campaign at the facility using the WHO Self Assessment Framework.NTUH stood out among other applicants in the Asia-Pacific region and won the award on the basis of its dedication and commitment to proper hand hygiene practices.

Improving compliance with hand hygiene among healthcare workers to reduce healthcare associated infection (HAI) and enhance healthcare quality has been a major goal of the global effort.In 2010, Taiwan CDC began promoting hand hygiene in healthcare facilities nation-wide.Establishing hand hygiene demonstration centers and launching hand hygiene certification programs are the two major components of Taiwan’s effort in support of the WHO’s “Save Lives: Clean Your Hands” initiative.The effort is aimed to guide healthcare facilities to improve their hand hygiene equipments within a short period of time and reinforce the 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene approach among healthcare workers in order to ensure hand hygiene compliance.
Although Taiwan’s preliminary effort in hand hygiene promotion has been internationally recognized, behavior change does not happen overnight.According to WHO’s recommendation, hand hygiene compliance is an incremental process and will take at least five years before high level of compliance is achieved.Taiwan CDC will continue to collaborate with healthcare facilities in the nation to ensure high level of hand hygiene compliance is achieved among healthcare workers in order to enhance healthcare quality and ensure patient safety.