CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Novant Health announces it has increased handwashing compliance from 49 percent to 99 percent and decreased methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection rates by 53 percent from 2005 to mid-year 2008 by implementing a hard-hitting, system-wide campaign that changed the health system's culture and spared an estimated 249 patients from the medical complications of MRSA.
Executives at Novant Health feel so strongly about hand hygiene and improving the quality and safety of patient care, they are making the health system's educational materials and details of their preventive program available and downloadable free of charge at www.WashingHandsSavesLives.org.
"Any health system can accomplish what we did," said Paul Wiles, Novant Health’s CEO, whose team embarked on the no-holds-barred, zero-tolerance campaign after Wiles was devastated by the death of a premature infant from MRSA and a MRSA outbreak in a Novant hospital neonatal unit.
