Imagine checking into the hospital with a simple case of tonsillitis, and checking out with a life-threatening infection. It could happen. In fact, healthcare-associated infections are among the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States, accounting for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 99,000 associated deaths each year. These dangerous infections can strike in your bloodstream, in surgical wounds, in the urinary tract and in your lungs.

If you are hospitalized, there's one simple step you and your visitors can take to help prevent these kinds of infections: wash your hands, and make sure that everyone who touches you washes their hands too. That's the key message behind a new video developed and launched by CDC in partnership with Safe Care Campaign and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). The video was made possible through a generous grant from Kimberly-Clark Corporation to the CDC Foundation.

CDC's Kristin Brinsley-Rainisch, M.P.H., approached the CDC Foundation in 2007, after CDC met with Safe Care Campaign founders Victoria and Armando Nahum. Three members of the Nahum family acquired infections in hospitals in three different states. Tragically, one of these infections resulted in the death of their son, Joshua. Shortly after Joshua's death, Victoria was on an airplane watching the in-flight safety video when she realized that hospitals need safety videos too. The Nahums suggested producing a video to educate other patients, and the CDC Foundation approached Kimberly-Clark about partnering with CDC to fund the project.

"When we learned about CDC's plans, we enthusiastically joined with the CDC Foundation to fund this important initiative," says Dr. Lynne Kelley, director of medical sciences, Kimberly-Clark. "Response to this campaign has been excellent, and we credit the CDC Foundation for bringing together the ideal partners to help CDC to take action to lower the risks of healthcare-associated infections."

What You Can Do

Take action and wash your hands often.

Wash your hands with soap and clean running water for 15 seconds.

If soap and clean water are not available, clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub.

Clean your hands before eating, after using the restroom and after touching surfaces in the hospital room such as bed rails, bedside tables, doorknobs, remote controls or the phone.

Ask those around you to practice hand hygiene.

Ask doctors, nurses and others to practice hand hygiene in a polite way – tell them that you know how easy it is for people to get infections in the hospital and that you don’t want it to happen to you.

Video empowers patients and visitors to speak up

Patients and their visitors are often reluctant to ask doctors or nurses if they have washed their hands, fearing that such a question would be rude. Hand Hygiene Saves Lives includes scenes that illustrate how hospital patients and visitors can assertively speak up about hand hygiene, with positive results.

"Healthcare providers know to practice hand hygiene, but sometimes they forget. Most welcome a friendly reminder," says CDC's Brinsley-Rainisch.

Hand Hygiene Saves Lives debuted at APIC's 2008 Annual Conference, where thousands of free copies were handed out to infection prevention and control professionals. The video was the most popular podcast downloaded from CDC's website in 2008, and more than 60,000 copies of it (and associated brochures and posters) have been distributed to date.

"We would have been hard-pressed to pull this video together without support from the CDC Foundation and Kimberly-Clark," says Brinsley-Rainisch. "The Foundation helped us write the proposal, brought us together with the right funding partner, and managed budgets and reporting so that we could focus on the campaign. CDC's video production team shot and produced the video, to keep our costs low."

To download the free video – available in English and Spanish with accompanying posters and brochures – visit www.cdc.gov/handhygiene.

Read more articles from Fall 2009 issue of theFrontLine newsletter