Nudge to improve hygiene and patient safety
Challenge
Wrongly performed hygiene procedures around isolation rooms lead to increased spread of infection, an increased number of infections during hospitalization and an overall longer hospitalization period.
Client: The Capital Region of Copenhagen -The New Hospital of Northerne Zealand
Approach
With the overall strategy of replacing all text-based information with visual guidelines, we made it easier for the healthcare personnel and relatives to perform hygiene procedures correctly before entering isolation rooms. The design solutions consisted of creating visual guidelines to show the position of the action, making visualizations of the object placement related to the procedure, and incorporating tangible and illustrated steps showing the actions in the right order.
Poorly performed hygienic practices in hospitals lead to increased spread of infection, an increased number of infections during hospitalization and an overall longer hospitalization period.
Results
The result of correctly performed procedures went from being 16% to 59% after implementing the mentioned strategy. The short-term and direct effect was an increase of correctly performed hygiene procedures, while the long-term and derivative effect was a reduction of hospital-acquired infections and overall hospitalization.
Correctly performed hygienic practices went from being 16% to 59% after implementing nudge solutions.
