Hand hygiene practices in healthcare: measure and improve.

Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the publication of Ignaz Semmelweis’ landmark monograph on hand hygiene – at the time hand disinfection with chlorinated lime solution – as a means to prevent nosocomial infections [1]. All the necessary scientific evidence that improved hand hygiene practices in healthcare indeed reduce healthcare-associated infections and patient-to-patient transmission of microorganisms is available [2,3]. Moreover, several studies have shown that hand hygiene promotion programmes are costeffective [3]. Still, in 2012, hand hygiene cannot be taken for granted in healthcare institutions in Europe and worldwide.