The WHO Multimodal Hand Hygiene Improvement Strategy Program
 This program sums up the 5 key recommendations taken from the WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care for implementing successful hand hygiene practices.
System change :
Alcohol based hand rubs at the point of care and access to a safe and continuous water supply, soap and towels = The basic rst step of successful hand hygiene practice consists in having the proper infrastructure available for healthcare workers.
Training and education :
Providing regular training to all healthcare workers. Only a workforce well aware of the importance of hand hygiene and how to properly implement it, will actually carry out e cient hand hygiene practice.
Evaluation and feedback :
Monitoring hand hygiene practices, infrastructure, perceptions and knowledge while providing feedback to healthcare workers. A workforce that knows where it stands on hand hygiene compliance results and receives a concrete evidence to how to improve is more likely to comply.
Reminders in the workplace :
Prompting and reminding health care workers. Forgetfulness is part of human nature and therefore it can be a major obstacle for hand hygiene compliance, which is why reminders through posters and other instruction tools must be used to combat forgetfulness.
Institutional safety climate :
Individual active participation, institutional support, patient participation. Hand hygiene practice supported by institutions at as high rank level such as ministries of health or hospital management is more likely to be high as per shown by various studies.
To help with implementing this program, the WHO has published on its website several practical tools for healthcare facilities to use such as posters
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