Hand Hygiene
Hand hygiene is one of the easiest and most effective ways to prevent illness. It simply means cleaning your hands properly—by washing with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand rub. Clean hands help stop the spread of germs. But do we wash our hands enough?
The COVID-19 pandemic reminded us how important hand hygiene is, along with staying home when sick. These actions led to fewer outbreaks and showed how powerful good health habits can be.
Hand hygiene is especially important in healthcare. Doctors, nurses, and other staff clean their hands often to prevent infections. These infections can happen in hospitals or during surgery, and good hand hygiene can help prevent them.
In healthcare settings, alcohol-based hand rub is usually the best choice when hands are not visibly dirty. For more details, see the images below.
Prairie Mountain Health monitors hand hygiene in hospitals, long-term care, and community settings. Hand-cleaning rates are reviewed every three months. You are always welcome to ask your healthcare provider if they’ve cleaned their hands – this is encouraged.
Healthcare providers should clean their hands at four key moments:
- Before touching a client or their surroundings,
- Before doing any clean or medical procedure,
- After being exposed to blood or body fluids, and
- After touching a client or their surroundings.
When visiting a healthcare facility, look for this sign below. Our goal is for healthcare staff to clean their hands at least 80% of the time at the four key moments. Below are examples of how often this happens across the region.
| Facility/Program Type | Examples | Hand Hygiene Compliance Rate (How often staff clean their hands) |
| Large Acute Care Facilities | Brandon, Dauphin, Swan Valley | 93.2% |
| Small Acute Care Facilities | Souris, Russell, Treherne | 83.5% |
| Long Term Care / Transitional Care | Fairview, St. Paul’s, Evergreen Place | 72.9% |
| Community Programs | Public Health, Home Care, Mental Health, Primary Health Care | 92.5% |
If the rates are not as high as our targeted 80%, facilities develop a plan to improve them.
Next time you receive care, remember—it’s okay to ask: “Have you cleaned your hands?”
We encourage you to speak up. Together, we can support good hand hygiene and a healthier community.
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