VIPTA is a statewide infection prevention and control education collaborative, led by the Virginia Healthcare-Associated Infections Advisory Group. Through partnership, VIPTA curates IPC resources for Virginia’s healthcare, congregate care, and public health settings.
Navigating the Hand Hygiene Galaxy
Hand hygiene remains one of the most important — and powerful — actions we can take to protect patients and ourselves. This year, in honor of World Hand Hygiene Day on Monday, May 5, 2025, we’re inviting you to chart a course for cleaner hands — and a healthier galaxy — with some stellar tools.
What to Expect: To support your hand hygiene efforts this May, here are a few resources that are out of this world:
- WHO Hand Hygiene Game: Step into a futuristic hospital in space and stop the spread of infections by completing all five levels in this interactive, free training game.
- CDC Hand Hygiene Program Video Series: A four-part educator video series built around the “4 Es” — Engage, Educate, Empower, and Evaluate — providing plain language tools and strategies to invigorate hand hygiene teaching.
- VDH Hand Hygiene In-Service Slide Deck: Ready-to-use PowerPoint training that covers essential hand hygiene practices will get you ready for training in the blink of an eye. It is one of many VDH hand hygiene resources.
How to Use These Resources:
- Host a Hand Hygiene Challenge: Encourage staff to compete to complete all five levels of the WHO Hand Hygiene Game. Participants who complete the mission can be entered into a prize drawing — and help boost team engagement!
- Inspire Champions with the CDC Video Series: Use CDC hand hygiene program videos to energize your Champions of Healthcare Infection Prevention (CHIP) and prep them to deliver quick, relatable education to peers. Turn everyday moments into hand hygiene wins across your facility.
- Expand World Hand Hygiene Day into a Week with the VDH Slide Deck: Pull key slides to create daily huddles leading up to May 5th. A quick message each day builds momentum, keeps clean hands top of mind, and turns a single event into a weeklong celebration.
No matter where your healthcare journey takes you — from bedside to breakroom — navigating the hand hygiene galaxy starts with clean hands.
Target Audience: Essential IPC Education Level
Cheers for Every Infection Prevention Win
This month let’s shine a light on the best practices that add up to big wins. Infection prevention is a team sport, and October is a perfect time to celebrate the everyday wins that keep patients, residents, and staff safe. There’s a new Cheers for Peers award certificate you can download and use right now from VIPTA:
A step-by-step guide to spread “cheer” this month.
- Pick a positive infection prevention accomplishment you want to celebrate.
- Customize and print the new Cheers for Peers certificate (or print a few blank ones to take on rounds).
- Share the certificate with a team member who is doing a great job preventing infections in your healthcare setting. Snap a picture if they’re ok with it.
- Brag on them on a unit board, your intranet, a team huddle, or any space meaningful to the recipient.
- (Optional) Share statewide by submitting to the VIPTA Cheers for Peers nomination form.
Cheers in Action: At Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, Infection Prevention has worked very closely with their equipment cleaning techs on hardwiring the process for cleaning and disinfecting of their neonatal intensive care unit isolettes. Infection Prevention awarded the team a Cheers for Peers certificate for all their hard work and collaboration with the IP team!
Looking for inspiration on what wins to celebrate? Take some of these ideas and tailor to your team’s accomplishments.
- Hand Hygiene Hero: Perfect hand hygiene on a spot audit.
- Infection-Free Milestone: A unit that stayed free of healthcare-associated infections for the month, six months, or a year.
- Oral Care All-Stars: A unit has >90% oral care compliance to lower healthcare-associated pneumonia risk.
- Environmental Services Excellence: Terminal clean passes (checklists or fluorescent-gel checks).
- “Wipe Before We Walk” Award (Facilities/Maintenance): Tools cleaned and disinfected after work in a patient room.
- Breathe-Easy Respiratory Infection Prevention Champions: Proper circuit handling and equipment disinfection across the board.
Try it and tell us how it went: Print a certificate, celebrate a win this month, and share your story. Submit a nomination to VIPTA and let us know what you tried, what worked, and how your team reacted. We cannot wait to cheer with you!
