Digital feedback improves hand hygiene, study finds

Hand hygiene adherence improved in a hospital surgical unit during a nine-month period at the individual and group level after participants received digital feedback from an electronic monitoring system. The study, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, found the 15 individuals who participated in the study from October 2018 to December 2019 significantly increased adherence to hand hygiene from an average of 37.9% at the study’s start to 52.5% at the study’s end. A screen at the nursing office displayed group feedback in real-time, while participants received individual feedback weekly. The authors call for long-term studies to evaluate the effect of digital feedback. (American Journal of Infection Control article, 6/22/25)