Learnings on hand hygiene audit form design from helping +100 hospitals implement hand hygiene auditing programs.
If you’re setting up or enhancing your hand hygiene auditing program, correctly designing your audit form has many benefits.
A well designed form can save staff time. It can ensure you meet regulatory requirements. And, it can generate the insights you need to guide effective quality improvement efforts.
Here’s best practices that you can implement in your own organization that the Qualaris team has learned from helping +100 customers implement hand hygiene auditing programs.
In the rush to get started and to make improvements, you may feel the temptation to hunker down by yourself and get to work. But, you’d miss a great opportunity.
Many Qualaris customers use the design process to build staff buy-in - engaging staff in a collaborative process designing your data collection tools.
Consider checking in with auditors for upfront input on what they like or dislike about your current hand hygiene audit form. Plan into your setup process opportunities for your auditors to test out your form and request adjustments. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on it, but the process of asking for feedback can make a big difference for staff.
Here’s a quick overview of the hand hygiene audit form fields most commonly used by Qualaris customers:
Head over to our topic library to check out interactive templates for hand hygiene and more.
If you’re using a software system to collect your hand hygiene audits, conditional logic rules can be a great resource for streamlining audit collection for staff.
The Leapfrog Group has progressively raised the bar on their surveys for hand hygiene. The requirement for auditors to provide feedback to those observed is one that can be readily tracked right on your form. Adding field like “feedback provided?” with options like “Positive feedback provided”, “Constructive feedback provided”, and “No feedback provided” will serve as a prompt for auditors to adopt this practice and track when and how it happens.
There’s a tendency when you get started to want to plan for everything you might potentially need in an audit form. Before you know it, your form looks like a homework assignment and staff eye’s are glazing over
The Qualaris team is happy to answer any questions you have for us!
Additional online resources for hand hygiene: