The sink’s over here, doc

While hospital patients would like to believe they are in good hands, they might not be in clean hands.

Research shows that less than 50 percent of hospital workers adhere to hand-hygiene guidelines. In fact, on average, they only wash or use hand sanitizer one-third to half the time they ideally should.

Reminding health-care workers that it is the patient they are there to protect increases hand hygiene, according to a recent study.

Adam Grant, a psychology professor at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and his co-author for the study, David Hofmann at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, looked at what motivates workers in the medical field to wash up. Their research suggests that changing the wording of hand-washing signs could make a difference.

For the study, which is scheduled to be published in Psychological Science, Grant and Hofmann looked at the influence of how hospital workers are reminded to wash and sanitize their hands.

Read the whole story: Lowell Sun