Article: Hand-hygiene program saved hospital $12 million over 3 years. (Reduction in Nosocomial Infections).

SAN DIEGO -- A simple educational campaign to encourage hospital workers to disinfect their hands with alcohol-based products saved $12 million in costs in a 3-year period, Dr. Didier Pittet said at the annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

The University of Geneva Hospitals has employed 100-mL bottles of alcohol-based hand rub at patients' bedsides since 1970. In 1996 the hospital introduced 75-mL pocket-sized. The promotional campaign, started in 1995, made hand hygiene an institutional priority, produced posters encouraging hand hygiene that were hung on hospital walls, monitored adherence to hygiene policies twice a year, and ...

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