Auditing with the 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene tool

Hand hygiene compliance (HHC) auditing is the established outcome measure for assessing the effectiveness of a hand hygiene program using the WHO 5 Moments for HH methodology. HHC is a valid and reliable tool for measuring hand hygiene behaviour in a health care setting.

Generally, the 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene audit tool is ideally suited to facilities that have the greatest staff/patient activity and interaction. This results in higher numbers of ‘Moments’ being audited in shorter time periods.

Auditing facilities where there is little staff/patient activity and interaction will result in a small number of moments being observed (i.e. non-acute, primary care, mental health settings) and resources required to undertake auditing may be better utilised measuring other aspects of a hand hygiene program (e.g product placement and availability surveys, education etc).

Currently HHA do not recommend routine HHC auditing with the 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene audit tool as an outcome measure in the non-acute, primary care or mental health setting. A number of audit tools are available which can be used or modified as desired.