3M's Joan Madigan, right, presents Trillium Health Centre's Janet Davidson, left, and Patti Cochrane with the 2008 OHA Patient Safety Award.
Trillium Health Centre wins 2008 OHA Patient Safety Award
Infection prevention, control team uses blood agar plates to promote good hand hygiene
Wednesday November 5, 2008 -- Natalie Miller
TORONTO -- Mississauga's Trillium Health Centre is the winner of the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) 2008 Patient Safety Award for its innovative way of promoting good hand hygiene through the use of blood agar plates.

By using the plates to see before and after results, the infection prevention and control team's alcohol-based hand rub challenge was in the spotlight Monday when the hospital received the award at the OHA's HealthAchieve event in Toronto.

"I was really excited...I wasn't really expecting it," Florentina Belu, Trillium Health Centre infection prevention and control practitioner, tells Axiom News.

Trillium Health Centre's initiative was chosen from more than 100 entries received by the OHA when it put out the call to Ontario hospitals to submit stories about projects and programs that improve patient safety.

"The purpose of the award is to acknowledge an exemplary initiative in the area of patient safety at the hospital level," Dominique Taylor, patient safety and best practice consultant at the OHA, earlier told Axiom News.

Of the entries received, the OHA published 46 best practice projects in its 'Patient Safety: Leading Practice in Ontario, Improvements, Ideas and Innovations 2008' booklet, which was released at HealthAchieve.

"By showcasing these projects, the OHA hopes to share this creativity across Ontario's hospital system, and inspire every individual working in a hospital to find one thing that could be done better, and to act on their idea," says OHA president and CEO Tom Closson about the booklet.

"Learning from one another is one of the best ways to enhance Ontario's health system and to ensure that Ontarians continue receiving the safest and most effective patient care possible."

Belu's colleague, infection prevention and control practitioner Cindy Plante-Jenkins, came up with the design for the hand rub challenge. To preserve anonymity, they provide staff members with a number and then ask them to touch the 'before' section of the agar plate with their fingertips. Participants then use an alcohol-based hand rub and a practitioner "walks them through" the hand sanitizing steps. Then they touch the 'after' section.

Following this, Trillium then counts the bacterial colonies and calculates the reduction by percentage and posts the results on an intranet site. Individuals can then "compare and understand the effectiveness" of their own hand sanitizing techniques, Belu explains in her project submission.

"It's a very good visual aide," she tells Axiom News. "It's a team effort to improve our hand hygiene."

3M honoured Trillium Health Centre by presenting the hospital, which has sites in Mississauga and Toronto, with a $5,000 prize.

Read more about the other patient safety initiatives in a series of upcoming stories on this website.

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