Hospitals whose healthcare workers had access to alcohol gel to disinfect hands had a decreased risk of hospital- associated infections in their patients compared to hospitals whose staff did not have a regular alcohol hand gel program, according to a new study from Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle and published in the April 1 edition of Pediatrics.
The study, including data from 31 children's hospitals and more than 48,000 patients, set out to examine the differences in infection control practices among healthcare facilities, describe the rates of hospital- associated infections in these institutions, and determine which infection control policies were associated with lower rates of hospital-associated infections. Data was restricted to analyze only those patients hospitalized for elective or semi-elective surgical procedures, under the hypothesis that these patients were least likely to have been admitted with preexisting respiratory or gastrointestinal infections and because elective procedures are often postponed in the presence of an illness.
Hospital-associated infections included gastrointestinal (e.g., diarrhea, Clostridium difficile and rotavirus) and respiratory (e.g., pneumonia, bronchiolitis, respiratory syncytial virus and croup) infections
Overall, approximately 2.3% of the patients studied acquired respiratory infections and 0.8% had gastrointestinal infections. The percent of patients developing hospital-associated infections varied significantly between hospitals, ranging between <1% to 6%. Similarly, many infection control practices varied between institutions. The investigators identified a significant reduction in gastrointestinal infections at healthcare facilities where staff used alcohol hand gel to sanitize hands. Patients at hospitals whose staff had access to alcohol hand gel for the entire study period had a 40% lower risk of developing gastrointestinal infections.