HHS HealthBeat (September 2, 2010)

All washed up?

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Let’s come clean: A lot of people don’t wash their hands, either right or enough. Even in health care settings such as hospitals, they don’t, although poorly cleaned hands carry germs. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researcher Kate Ellingson says health care workers in general wash their hands properly less than half of the times they should.

Ellingson says one of the best ways to make sure they wash right is to watch them. But who can watch the washing? Well, it could be the patient or a family member – if they know what to look for. So CDC has a video to help:

"Modeled after the video that airline passengers view prior to take-off on a flight, this video is intended to be shown to patients upon admission to the hospital."  (9 seconds)

Like to see it? Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November 21, 2011