Hand contamination during hospital patient care

摘要

Few data are available regarding the types of patient care activity that result in the transmission of patient flora to health care worker (HCW) hands.1 Here, we assessed the contamination of HCW gloved hands during routine patient care (i.e., bed bath and dressing changes) in an eight-bed adult intensive care unit of a 120-bed Brazilian university hospital. The study was conducted from May 9 to June 21, 2011, and was approved by the hospital ethics committee. All five patients included in this study had bloodstream infections and clinical isolates of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter baumannii2 from blood culture, catheter tip, or tracheal aspirate.