April 30, 2009

Ontario is leading the way in North America with today’s launch of province-wide public reporting of hand-hygiene compliance rates – one part of a comprehensive plan to create an unprecedented level of transparency in Ontario’s hospitals.

The province has begun public reporting of hand hygiene compliance among health care providers in hospitals in addition to rates of central line infections (CLIs), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and surgical site infection (SSI) prevention.

In total, Ontario is now publicly reporting eight patient safety indicators which can be found by visiting www.ontario.ca/patientsafety.

The initial results show that :

• 62.16 per cent of health care providers perform hand hygiene before initial patient or patient environment contact and after patient or patient environment contact
• The number of central line infection (CLI) cases that developed in the ICUs of Ontario’s hospitals was 106. The CLI rate was 1.56 per 1000 central line days.
• The number of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) cases that developed in the ICUs of Ontario’s hospitals was 176. The VAP rate was 3.51 per 1000 ventilator days
• 85.19 per cent of primary hip/knee joint replacement surgical patients received antibiotics within the appropriate time period before the surgery.

In 2007, the government pilot tested the hand hygiene compliance reporting program in 10 hospitals. Once hospitals started tracking and reporting compliance rates, hand hygiene increased steadily at each of the test sites.

“Our government knows that ‘if you can track it, you can improve it,’ which is why these new patient safety indicators are so important. This public reporting enables hospitals to monitor these rates so that the highest standards of practice and most effective infection prevention and control measures can be put in place.”
- David Caplan, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care

“The initial compliance numbers clearly show that hand hygiene in our hospitals needs to be improved – in some cases dramatically. I know hospitals and health care providers across the province are ready and willing to make improvements and provide patients with the high level of care they expect and deserve.”
- Dr. Michael Baker, Executive Lead, Patient Safety, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

• Proper hand hygiene is the single most effective way of reducing health care associated infections.
• One year ago, Ontario launched Just Clean Your Hands – an evidence-based, multi-faceted program that provides a model for proper hand hygiene practice in hospitals.

Learn more about Ontario’s Patient Safety Initiative and hospital reporting.
Learn more about Ontario’s hand hygiene initiative Just Clean Your Hands.
Read the announcement on the full public reporting of eight patient safety indicators.

Backgrounders :

• Reporting of CLI, VAP and SSI-Prevention Rates in Hospitals
• Reporting of Hand Hygiene Rates in Hospitals
• Jurisdictional Comparison of Patient Safety Indicators

Fact Sheet :

• Building capacity to increase patient safety

For further information :

For public inquiries call ServiceOntario, INFOline at 1-866-532-3161 (Toll-free in Ontario only)

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