Failure to Follow Hand Hygiene Protocol During Laundry Delivery
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to maintain an effective infection prevention and control program regarding hand hygiene practices during laundry delivery to resident rooms. On the specified date, two laundry staff members were observed delivering laundry to three resident rooms without performing hand hygiene before entering or after exiting each room. When interviewed, the laundry staff stated they had been informed by a former supervisor that hand hygiene between resident rooms was no longer required after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further interviews with housekeeping and administrative nursing staff revealed that the facility's expectation was for all staff to perform hand hygiene with alcohol-based hand rub (ABHR) when moving from one resident's room to another, and to wash hands with soap and water after every fourth or fifth use of ABHR. The facility's hand hygiene policy, revised earlier in the year, required staff to comply with hand hygiene guidelines, including before and after direct contact with residents and before and after contact with inanimate objects in the vicinity of residents. The failure of the laundry staff to follow these protocols led to the identified deficiency.