January 6, 2011 (Minneapolis, MN) – Jani-King International’s Healthcare Services Division, a leader in providing environmental services to the hospital and surgery center market, took a leadership role in providing funding for a program that increased North Memorial Health Care’s baseline compliance from 38% to 90%. A recent study by North Memorial Health Care shows the three-year hand hygiene project resulted in a reduction in healthcare associated infections and surpassed the highest published compliance score to date.
“When we first started tracking hand hygiene at North memorial in 2007 our baseline compliance was 38%,” said Joseph Boston, Vice President of Development at North Memorial Health Care. “With Jani-King’s help we developed a program and goal of increasing our compliance to 85%. Within one year, we reached 88% compliance and won the patient safety award from the Minnesota Association for Patient Safety in 2008. Since then, we have maintained both of our hand hygiene compliance rates (foam in and foam out) near or at the 90% rate and the associated reduction in MRSA cases.”
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), clean hands are the single most important factor in preventing the spread of pathogens and antibiotic resistance in healthcare settings. CDC estimates that nearly 2 million patients in the United States get an infection in hospitals and about 90,000 of these patients die as a result of their infection.
“This was a win in the fight against Healthcare Associated Infections,” said Mark Regna, Director of Healthcare Services for Jani-King International. “Jani-King is very pleased with North Memorial health Care’s findings and how quickly success was achieved through this hand hygiene program. We applaud the commitment and hard work of North Memorial Hospital and their achievements in patient safety.”
