Hand Hygiene

“(This) could be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of severe cases.” – Mark Pallansch, virologist and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Viral Diseases, on Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68). On the eve of the 2014-15 American flu and cold season, doctors and health care professionals are working to […]

Ever notice how usually the only folks not coughing and sneezing up a storm during cold and flu seasons are the people who spend the most time around germs, bacteria and viruses? They’re not magicians, they’re just doctors and nurses and experts on cold and flu defense plans. Medical professionals are exposed to sick people […]

Any product can claim to be a miracle drug. From cures for baldness to weight loss wonder pills, drug, nutrition and cosmetic store shelves are stock full of products making wild, often too good to be true claims. And as any informercial watcher can tell you, there is a lot of fiction writing in drug […]

What Exactly is the Norovirus? Norovirus has such an infamous name it’s often called worse than the flu. The ailment lives up to its reputation, derailing vacations, racking up sick days and leaving its subjects in painful misery. Unrelated to influenza, norovirus is an easily contagious virus spread from infected people, contaminated food or water, […]

Germs fly everywhere, logging more frequent flyer miles than the most on-the-go of business travelers.  And during the holiday season, there are few more disturbing thoughts for travelers than germs on the loose at 30,000 feet. There are few places on Earth where bacteria and illness are transmitted faster than a contained airplane cabin. The […]

Sneezes. Runny noses. Dirt on hands. Colds and infectious bacterias have no offseason in American schools, where they’re present from August through June. These enemies of education cause the country’s school kids to miss millions of days of school annually, and make teachers’ jobs of enlightening America’s future even harder. The National Center for Health […]

In this book, a must read for anyone in the healthcare field, Crouzat takes readers along Pittet’s personal journey and humanitarian crusade to educate the world on the immense, often life-or-death importance of good hand hygiene.

A Glimpse Back at the Progression of Antiseptics Over the Centuries The printing press. The light bulb. The automobile. The computer. The Internet. The iPhone. Pizza delivery. All of these cutting edge inventions have changed the world and extraordinarily enhanced the way we live. Yet none can rival the remarkable global impact that antiseptics have […]

The Earth was born four billion years ago and has weathered many a health crisis. From asteroid strikes to horrible World Wars to the 1970s’ shaky fashion sense, our planet has pressed on, serving as our home and life source. Scientists’ extensive research tells us the Earth is halfway through its life span. And, as […]

The tired hospital cook was a gamer, sick with a bad cold but working faster than world hot dog eating king Joey Chestnut at the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island. He was making sandwiches, serving up pastas and preparing steaks. He was working two hundred miles per minute with raw meat, […]

Hand hygiene products labeled as “antibacterial” are produced with active antibacterial chemicals such as triclosan, chloroxylenol, and Benzalkonium Chloride which are intended to kill bacteria and microbes. Yet in recent years the purported benefits of antimicrobial products have been challenged by organizations such as the USDA and FDA, and an increasing amount of research has […]

The vast majority of hand hygiene products currently on the market contain chemical fragrances. Required by the FDA to be listed only under “fragrance” on the product label, these ingredients give a product its distinct smell or aroma. Yet certain chemicals commonly contained in fragranced products have been linked to negative health effects – including […]

When selecting a hand soap or hand hygiene product, it is important to consider not just the product’s effectiveness and safety, but also how it will interact with the environment once it has been rinsed down the drain. After all, hand hygiene products are typically used at or around a sink and then immediately rinsed […]

Synthetic dyes are used in hand hygiene products to offer an attractive color or to alter the color of a product deemed unattractive by manufacturers. It is estimated that there exist upwards of 1,200 different dyes used to color household products, the majority of which are known irritants or even toxins. Outlined here are a […]

Keeping your hands clean through the use of proper hand hygiene is the most important step you can take to avoid illness and spreading germs to others. Germs can be picked up through coming into contact with any common surface, such as counter tops, desks, keyboards, animals, even other people. These germs can enter the […]

Touch-free dispensers, automatic dispensers, motion-activated dispensers, or whatever you want to call them, are becoming more and more popular for hand soaps and hand sanitizers in institutional settings.  Touch-free dispensers are an important innovation in hand hygiene, but before you install touch-free dispensers, be sure that you’ve made plans to avoid common problems. We, at […]

Selecting a hand soap for your school should be a complicated decision. That may sound strange to you. Why should it be complicated? Unfortunately, many schools don’t make it complicated. Instead, they simply include their hand soaps in a massive bid with several vague specifications, like pink soap with cherry fragrance, and then pick the […]

Consumers often see and buy small hand sanitizer bottles at gas stations, grocery stores, and at mass merchants. Some bottles are really tiny, even .5 oz. What’s your favorite portable bottle size? From the perspective of effectiveness and good hand hygiene, I have a strong concern about those tiny, half-ounce bottles. I worry that users […]

Customers often ask, “Which is better, gel or foam hand sanitizer?” The answer I generally give is answer, “Whichever type your healthcare workers, students, employees, or staff prefer and will use more often.” I would much prefer to give a direct answer, but the honest answer really is that it is a personal preference. We […]

A common struggle business managers have to deal with is illness in the workplace and employee absenteeism.  When employees are sick or absent, productivity takes a hit, and that means bad news for the bottom line. There are many contributing factors when determining the cause of employee absenteeism such as employee attitude, job satisfaction and […]