Another benefit of hand hygiene!

We are always looking for ways to improve hand hygiene. Researcher Spike Lee at the University of Michigan has just published a creative study in the journal Science. In the study, subjects were asked to make a difficult decision. The subjects who washed their hands after making the decision, had lower cognitive dissonance; they were more at ease with their tough decisions. You can hear more about the study on this weeks Science Friday on NPR (here). Now if we could get our clinicians to round in the room (as some used to) and make decisions in the room, we could really increase our exit compliance. As it is, we could at least improve our entry compliance if we made the study results more available. Feel good about yourself: wash your hands!