Atlantic Health System recognized for having the “cleanest hands in healthcare”
August 22, 2018, Charlotte, NC – New Jersey-based Atlantic Health System has been awarded the 2018 Hand Hygiene Excellence Award from DebMed for having the “cleanest hands in healthcare” due to its high level of sustained hand hygiene compliance.
“We are incredibly proud that our dedication to hand hygiene and patient safety has been recognized with a 2018 Hand Hygiene Excellence Award,” said Laura Anderson, MSN, RN, CIC, Director, Infection Prevention, Atlantic Health System. “We have worked hard over the past few years to deeply understand our hand hygiene habits, identify challenges to compliance, and implement solutions that help us ensure a clean and sanitary environment for our patients to heal.”
With initial goals to decrease hospital-acquired infections and accurately measure hand hygiene compliance, Atlantic Health System introduced the DebMed Electronic Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring System in July 2015. The participating units were not only able to increase compliance by 46.2 percent, but also saw a strong connection between improvement in compliance and decreased infections. Due to the success of the pilot initiative, Atlantic Health System expanded use of the DebMed program to its six hospitals, achieving a sustained 57 percent improvement over baseline during a 12-month period.
“Atlantic Health System demonstrates what is possible when a hospital is committed to improving patient safety from the leaders down to the individual healthcare worker," said Ron Chappuis, VP of Marketing, DebMed. “We are proud to partner with them as they continue to achieve patient outcome improvements through WHO 5 moment compliance."
“In giving out this award, we initially set out to acknowledge a single hospital with the best hand hygiene compliance, but Atlantic Health’s entire system is outperforming even the next best single hospital. This is the type of collaboration and collective success we know is possible with our healthcare partners to reduce HAIs. While many of our other hospitals challenged Atlantic Health for this award, there is no doubt their team has ‘The Cleanest Hands in Healthcare.’”
The DebMed Electronic Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring System is the only research-based, badge-free system able to track compliance based on the WHO ‘5-Moments’ and CDC hand hygiene standards. With its ability to capture 100 percent of hand hygiene events and opportunities beyond just room entry and exit, it promotes a spirit of collaboration and accountability and provides actionable feedback for the group without singling out individuals.
Learn more about the DebMed system >
About DebMed
SC Johnson Professional® is part of SC Johnson®, a family company and one of the world's leading manufacturers of household cleaning products and products for home storage, air care, pest control and shoe care, as well as professional products. The company has a long history in the professional market, in which it started operating in the 1930’s.
SC Johnson Professional® provides expert skin care, cleaning & hygiene solutions for industrial, institutional and healthcare users. This incorporates the Deb range of specialist occupational skin care products along with well-known SC Johnson® brands and innovative professional cleaning & hygiene products.
The SC Johnson Professional® purpose is to bring innovative, quality products and services to professional markets with outstanding performance that respect the environment, create efficiencies, reduce inventories, simplify training and provide a positive user experience. This is built on a deep understanding of customer needs and a vision for ‘rethinking the professional experience’ with the user in mind.