Hand Hygiene
Most germs in health care settings can be spread by unclean hands. Each time a person touches an object or another person, germs can be spread. Good hand washing can help prevent harmful germs from spreading and causing infection.
What is your role in preventing infections?
Hand hygiene is important for everyone; you, your loved ones, and health care providers. It is okay to ask your health care providers, friends and family to clean their hands. After all, it’s your health we are interested in, so don’t be shy about asking.
Everyone should clean their hands:
- Before and after touching you
- Before and after eating
- When hands are visibly dirty
- After using the bathroom
- After coughing or sneezing
If you are in a health care facility, you should also clean your hands before you leave your room and when you return.
Visitors are important in preventing the spread of infections. When visiting a facility it is important that you clean your hands when you:
- Arrive at the facility
- Enter the client’s room
- Exit the client’s room
- Leave the facility
What are the choices for cleaning hands?
What is PMH Doing?
PMH recognizes that hand hygiene is the single most important practice to prevent the spread of infections. Thousands of times a day, health care workers handle items that can carry germs. Without good hand washing, these germs can be spread to others and cause infections.
PMH strives to maintain optimal hand hygiene performance by all staff to help prevent health care-associated infections.
How is PMH doing this?
All staff complete mandatory hand hygiene education annually. Hand hygiene performance is monitored by conducting regular audits throughout the region.
Our goal is to provide the safest care possible within all PMH programs.