Surfaceskins - The Best Way to Reduce ‘Superbugs’ - First, wash your hands

For preventing deaths, hospitals are the front line. People can harbour superbugs on the skin, around the nostrils or in the gut, where they are usually harmless. But if they slip into a wound or the bloodstream they become dangerous. In Europe, 73% of deaths caused by superbugs are from infections that occur in medical settings. These infections are commonly referred to as Health-Care Associated Infections or HAI’s.

Many hospital manager’s go to great (and expensive) lengths to help control infections and reduce HAI's that have an associated economic burden in the UK alone of 1 billion pounds. However, research has shown that often the best results are generated from hospitals that are zealous about one thing: the basics. “In the end, it is all about hand hygiene,” says Dominique Monnet from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the EU’s public-health agency. Though superbugs can lurk on clothes, sinks, toilets and indeed almost any surface in a hospital, the most common way they get transmitted to patients is by the hands of health workers. 80% of infections are transferred via the hands. With this in mind, there is nothing touched more in a hospital than a door and door handle. You can see why Surfaceskins has focused on this weak link in the infection chain when developing their innovative infection control self disinfecting door pads and pull handles. 

Surfaceskins are designed to help reduce infection by eliminating doors and door handles as an area of contamination thus ‘breaking’ the infection chain. As a healthcare worker, patient, or member of the public passes through a door utilising the Surfaceskins push pad or pull handle, a tiny bit of anti-bacterial gel is released killing any bacteria that comes in contact with it. As a result, you are always touching a bacteria free or 'clean' surface. However, this is not the only benefit of utilising Surfaceskins in important high dependancy areas of the hospital. It has also has been proven that when displayed and after a brief period of education, Surfaceskins promote greater hand hygiene compliance and awareness. In a recent behavioural study at two UK primary schools, hand hygiene awareness rose by 88% and compliance increased by 74% This study was duplicated in a private UK hospital with similar results.

Hand hygiene is key for infection control and preventing antimicrobial (AMR) 'superbugs'. A survey in 2011-12 found that the amount of sanitising hand-rub used per patient per day in Bulgarian, Italian and Romanian hospitals was less than a fifth of that in Norway, Denmark or Sweden. After a tour of several Italian hospitals in 2017 an ECDC team concluded that “most personnel seemed unaware of basic hand-hygiene principles”. It also found that alcohol hand-rub was often placed where it was “unrealistic” to expect its routine use. The table below highlights the impact on AMR death rates for these aforementioned countries and how following strict hand hygiene protocol can significantly impact death rates. 

In southern Europe, policing hand-hygiene compliance is the best way to boost it, says Mr Borg. For northern Europe, he believes that convincing health workers of its merits works better. At VUMC in Amsterdam a “link nurse” from each ward is trained to proselytise about infection-prevention standards. Nurses like Ms Overkamp, the link nurse for the trauma unit, are also better than higher-ups at spotting barriers to compliance—and the solutions. By one estimate, some nurses must clean their hands about 100 times per shift. “On a busy day, at the end, the skin on my hands feels like it will fall off,” says Ms Overkamp. A new hand-rub, which nurses requested as a less messy option, turned out to be more skin-friendly too. To make the message land, link nurses resort to creativity. A game with glow-in-the-dark powder that nurses smeared on their gloved hands, for example, showed how easily germs spread from hands that are not cleaned after removing the gloves. (It ended up “everywhere”, including nurses’ faces, says Ms Overkamp.)

Surfaceskins are a natural supporter of hand hygiene compliance and awareness, performing a similar role as the link nurse. As a healthcare work approaches the door during their busy shift, they are prompted by the colourful Surfaceskin door pad and its message to Think Hand Hygiene. If it is not the visual reminder then it is the physical reminder of the contact with Surfaceskins and the release of the anti-bacterial gel that reminds and prompts the door user to seek hand hygiene compliance.

In November the OECD, a think-tank, published a comparison of various strategies to reduce the toll from superbugs. It ranked improved hand hygiene in health care as the best approach to reduce deaths and hospital stays. Achieving compliance at 70% of health-care facilities is estimated to cost an oecdcountry between $0.90 and $2.50 per head of population per year. The money that would be saved from having fewer hospitalisations as a result exceeds these costs. Surfaceskins are a low cost disposable product with the potential for incredible health benefits. There are few deals as good as this to be had in health care.