The importance of standard precautions and the effect of hand hygiene on health care-associated infections have in recent years received attention in campaigns of, among others, World Health Organization WHO. The aim of this study is to examine hand hygiene compliance during venous sampling and ECG examination in Vaasa Central Hospital. By direct observation according to WHO´s manual for hand hygiene auditing, 48 biomedical laboratory scientists, working in three different departments, are being observed during sampling.

Observations are taking place among phlebotomists on the department of Clinical Chemistry (B3) during morning rounds and during emergency hours, during ECG-morning rounds by the department of Clinical Physiology and during sampling by the sampling laboratory (B1). This study specially focus on observations during B3´s morning rounds, to see if the adherence to hand hygiene recommendations has improved since a corresponding survey in 2014. The analysis of the results are based on a protocol by WHO as well as statistical methods.

The study shows, among other things, that the overall hand hygiene compliance of Vaasa Central Hospital´s samplers is 69 %. The adherence to hand hygiene recommendations during B3´s morning rounds is 70 %, an improvement with 7 % compared to the results in 2014. The compliance is higher after (81 %) than before (48 %) patient contact.

According to this thesis survey, biomedical laboratory scientists´ adherence to hand hygiene recommendations on Vaasa Central Hospital is relatively high. The participating laboratories can use the results as a measure of quality and patient safety. In future studies may further education for the personnel as well as activation of the patients be factors of success for better hand hygiene compliance.