“Wash your hands!” Mom used to say. Turns out, she was right – especially when it comes to reducing preventable hospital infections. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), hand hygiene is one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of infections and thereby contributes significantly to keeping patients safe. More than 1.4 million cases of health care-associated infection (HAI) exist at any given time globally; and the evidence shows that hand antisepsis reduces transmission of health care-associated pathogens and the incidence of HAIs. 1 We’ve come to the rescue, with 3M™ Avagard™ hand hygiene products that are fast and easy to use. 3M was the first to introduce a waterless, brushless surgical hand scrub designed especially for health care workers. This not only helps increase hand hygiene compliance, it also reduces water usage and material waste.2 Now we’ve gone the extra mile, making a hand soap that doesn’t contain triclosan and using plant-based ethanol to make hand hygiene foam and gel products sustainable. We even earned the USDA Certified Biobased Product Label on our foam and gel products, verifying that the product’s amount of renewable biobased ingredients meets or exceeds levels set by the agency. Sustainable patient safety. That cleans up nicely!

Sources:
1. WHO
2. Larson EL, Aiello AE, Heilman JM, Lyle CT, Cronquist A, Stahl JB, Della-Latta P. Comparison of different regimens for surgical hand preparation. AORN J. 2001 Feb;73(2):412-4, 417-8, 420 passim.