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Health Care Workers Skip Hand Washing One-Third of the Time

Outpatient facility staff also found to be lacking at safe injection practices

THURSDAY, April 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Staff at many outpatient health care facilities in New Mexico failed to follow recommendations for hand hygiene more than one-third of the time, according to findings published in the April 1 issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.

For the study, the researchers looked at 15 outpatient facilities. The investigators found 93 percent had U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outpatient infection control policies in place.

Staff at the facilities failed to follow proper hand hygiene 37.0 percent of the time, the researchers found. And safe injection procedures weren’t followed 21.6 percent of the time.

“This project highlights the importance of assessing both the report of recommended infection prevention policies and practices, as well as behavior compliance through observational audits,” the authors write.

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