Hand Hygiene Compliance

Patients can help improve their own safety

Research shows that hand hygiene is the single most effective way to reduce the risk of health-care associated infections. Hand hygiene is a key issue for our hospital, and we continually work to improve compliance.

Hand hygiene involves everyone in the hospital, including patients. Hand cleaning is one of the best ways you and your health-care team can prevent the spread of many infections. Patients and their visitors should also practice good hand hygiene before and after entering patient rooms.

More patient-specific information is available at:

Health Quality Ontario

Patient and Family Centered Care

Clean hands protect lives

Measuring compliance rates

The Ottawa Hospital regularly audits health-care professionals to ensure they are performing hand hygiene the right way at the right time. The results of these audits are continually reported internally to individual patient units and to the Ministry of Health yearly.

Hand hygiene compliance rates at The Ottawa Hospital

Hand Hygiene: Number of times Hand Hygiene performed before initial Patient / Pt Environment Contact
	Civic Campus			General Campus			The Rehabilitation Centre
Monthly	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH
Fiscal Year 2025-26	3664	4638	79.0%	3068	4713	65.1%	422	539	78.3%
Fiscal Year 2024-25	3142	4235	74.2%	1981	2846	69.6%	143	168	85.1%
Fiscal Year 2023-24	2668	3258	81.9%	2994	3477	86.1%	267	308	86.7%

Hand Hygiene: Number of times Hand Hygiene is performed after Patient / Pt Environment Contact
	Civic Campus			General Campus			The Rehabilitation Centre
Monthly	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH
Fiscal Year 2025-26	4384	5028	87.2%	6573	7967	82.5%	665	747	89.0%
Fiscal Year 2024-25	4123	4002	84.1%	3698	4554	81.2%	227	279	81.4%
Fiscal Year 2023-24	3632	4004	90.7%	3911	4317	90.6%	264	300	88.0%

Hand Hygiene: Number of times Hand Hygiene is performed before Aseptic Procedure
	Civic Campus			General Campus			The Rehabilitation Centre
Monthly	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH
Fiscal Year 2025-26	5	6	83.3%	2	3	66.7%	0	0	n/a
Fiscal Year 2024-25	3	16	18.8%	4	20	20.0%	0	0	n/a
Fiscal Year 2023-24	34	75	45.3%	32	64	50.0%	0	0	n/a

Hand Hygiene: Number of times Hand Hygiene is performed after Body Fluid Exposure Risk
	Civic Campus			General Campus			The Rehabilitation Centre
Monthly	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH	HH Performed	# Observations	% Compliance with HH
Fiscal Year 2025-26	0	1	0.0%	3	6	50.0%	0	0	n/a
Fiscal Year 2024-25	0	7	0.0%	5	11	45.5%	0	0	n/a
Fiscal Year 2023-24	0	1	0.0%	5	5	100.0%	0	0	n/a