Alcohol Gels Top Soap for
Hand Hygiene at Hospitals
Excerpt By Jacqueline Stenson, Reuter's Health

SAN DIEGO (Reuters Health) - Hospital workers might say so long to good old soap-and-water scrubbing, as new research finds that alcohol-based gels are an easier, more effective way to disinfect dirty hands, experts say.

And while the alcohol rubs cost more up front, they can save money over time by cutting down on potentially serious hospital-acquired infections that can total thousands of dollars to treat, according to research presented here Saturday at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

At least 2 million Americans each year acquire infections while in the hospital and thousands die from them, statistics show. A big part of the problem is that healthcare workers do not have, or do not take, the time to properly wash their hands in between treating patients. A proper cleansing may take 30 to 60 seconds.

Enter alcohol-based gels, foams and lotions that disinfect the hands in about 15 seconds, without the need to locate a sink. Doctors, nurses and other workers can simply get a dollop of the product from a dispenser on a hospital room wall and rub their hands together as they make their way to the next patient.

In one new study, widespread use of alcohol-based hand rubs by hospital workers substantially cut down on the spread of potentially lethal bacteria that are resistant to top antibiotics. The number of new cases of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus decreased by 21% and cases of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus dropped 40% during the 2-year study at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, DC.

"The only change that we made that would account for the decrease was the implementation of the hospital-wide alcohol-based hand-washing system," said study author Maureen Schultz, an infection control specialist at the hospital.

Another study in Switzerland showed that hospitals can save a great deal of money by switching to the alcohol rubs, because the extra costs of treating serious infections outweigh product costs.

"The cost savings to our institution was $12 million from 1999 to 2001," Dr. Didier Pittet, head of the infection control program at the University of Geneva Hospitals, told Reuters Health. "The strategy is largely cost-effective for hospitals."

Hospital-acquired infections decreased by about half since the program got into full swing in 1994, Pittet said.

Elaine Larson, a nurse and associate dean of research at the Columbia University School of Nursing in New York, said a "revolution" in hospital hand hygiene is taking place in the United States.

Sometime later this year, she said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to release new guidelines urging hospitals to rely heavily on alcohol-based products for hand hygiene.

"This represents a major change," Larson said. "Can you imagine telling a surgeon he doesn't have to scrub?"

While the concept is relatively new in America, alcohol hand rubs have become standard in many European hospitals, she noted.

Reference Source 89

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