Aim Health care–associated infections along with antibiotic resistance are a leading risk for patient safety in intensive care units. Hygienic hand disinfection is still regarded as the most effective, simplest, and most cost‐effective measure to reduce health care–associated infections. To improve hand hygiene compliance and to prevent health care–associated infections, interventions of the “German Clean Hands Campaign” were implemented in a university hospital. Methods Observational single‐center study using direct observation and feedback. Hand hygiene performance was assessed in 12 intensive care units between 2013 and 2017. Linear mixed model regression analyses were used to estimate the compliance trend over time. Results In total, 10 315 “my five moments for hand hygiene” were observed. The mean hand hygiene compliance rates increased from 75.1% to 88.6% during the study period, yielding an estimated increase of about 4.5% per year. However, there are differences in compliance between occupational groups (physicians: between 61.2% and 77.1%; nurses: between 80.2% and 90.9%; others: between 61.3% and 82.4%). Conclusions After implementation of the “German Clean Hands Campaign” interventions, an overall significant improvement of hand hygiene was detected. Compliance measurements helped to raise awareness among health care professional groups.

BackgroundThe WHO Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC) was established to address important safety issues and to reduce the number of surgical deaths. So far, numerous reports have demonstrated sub-optimal implementation of the SSC in practice and limited improvements in patient outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to audit the SSC-practice in a real-world setting in a university hospital setting.MethodsFrom 2015 to 2016, independent observers performed snapshot audits in operating theatres and shadowed the three phases of the SSC. Using a 4-point Likert-scale to rate the compliance on each audit day, we generated a report highlighting possible improvements and provided feedback to the operating team members.ResultsAudits were performed on 36 operating days (2015: n = 19; 2016: n = 17), in which a total of 136 surgical interventions were observed. Overall, the percentage of “very good compliance” improved from 2015 to 2016: for the sign-in from 52.9% to 81.2% (p = 0.141), for the team-time-out from 33.3% to 58.8% (p = 0.181), and for the sign-out from 21.4% to 41.7% (p = 0.401). The qualitative review revealed inconsistencies when applying the SSC, of which the missing documentation of an actually performed item or the wrong timing for an item was most common.ConclusionSnapshot audits revealed that SSC compliance has improved over the observed period, while its application revealed inconsistencies during the three phases of the SSC. Snapshot audits proved to be a valuable tool in the qualitative analysis of SSC compliance and gave more insight than a mere completeness check of ticks in SSC documents.

We identified speaking up behaviors for the first time in an Austrian university hospital. Only moderately frequent concerns were in conflict with frequent speaking up behaviors. These results clearly show that a paradigm shift is needed to increase speaking up culture.

Background To increase patient safety, so-called Critical Incident Reporting Systems (CIRS) were implemented. For Austria, no data are available on how CIRS is used within a healthcare facility. Therefore, the aim of this study was to present the development of CIRS within one of the biggest hospital providers in Austria. Methods In the province of Styria, CIRS was introduced in 2012 within KAGes (holder of public hospitals) in 22 regional hospitals and one tertiary university hospital. CIRS is available in all of these hospitals using the same software solution. For reporting a CIRS case an overall guideline exists. Results As of 2013, 2.504 CIRS cases were reported. Predominantly, CIRS-cases derived from surgical and associated disciplines (ranging from 35 to 45%). According to the list of hazards (also called “risk atlas”), errors in patient identification (ranging from 7 to 12%), errors in management of medicinal products (ranging from < 5 to 9%), errors in management of medical devices (ranging from < 5 to 10%) and errors in communication (ranging from < 5 to 6%) occurred most frequently. Most often, a CIRS case was reported due to individual error-related reasons (48%), followed by errors caused by organization, team factors, communication or documentation failures (34%). Conclusions In summary, CIRS has been used for 5 years and 2.504 CIRS-cases were reported. There is a steady increase of reported CIRS cases per year. It became also obvious that disregarding guidelines or standards are a very common reason for reporting a CIRS case. CIRS can be regarded as a helpful supportive tool in clinical risk management and supports organizational learning and thereby collective knowledge management.

Aims and objective To explore whether an iterative process of information and training paired with a feedback system to observed healthcare professionals and the respective management improves hand hygiene (HH) compliance. Background Healthcare‐associated infections are a major risk for patient safety, and adherence to the “My five moments” (M5M) for HH varies significantly within organisations as well as within healthcare professional groups. Identified barriers in a baseline survey revealed the need of more information, training, repetitive compliance measurements and feedback to all healthcare professionals. Design A quality improvement project using the method of direct observation of healthcare professionals in nonsurgical and surgical wards. Methods Between 2013 and 2017, 6,009 healthcare professionals were informed and trained, and HH compliance measurements were performed by hygiene experts. Compliance measurement results were documented in an online tool to give an immediate feedback to observed healthcare professionals. Additionally, a report was forwarded to the management of the respective department to raise awareness. Compliance rates per year were descriptively summarised. The research and reporting methodology followed SQUIRE 2.0. Results In total, 84 compliance measurements with 19,295 “M5M for HH” were observed in 49 wards. Overall, mean HH compliance increased from 81.9 ± 5.2% in 2013 to 94.0 ± 3.6% in 2017. Physicians’ HH compliance rate improved from 69.0 ± 16.6% to 89.3 ± 6.6%, that of nurses from 86.0 ± 6.9% to 96.4 ± 3.1%, and that of others from 60.5 ± 27.9% to 83.8 ± 20.2%. All M5M for HH (#1–#5) increased over the study period (#1: +16.9%; #2: +20.5%; #3: +7.6%; #4: +5.9%; #5: +12.7%). Conclusions Results demonstrated that an iterative process of information, training, observation and feedback over a period of 5 years can be successful in increasing HH compliance. Positive trends were observed for HH compliance rates across all healthcare professional groups as well as for all M5M for HH.