Do physicians clean their hands? Insights from a covert observational study.

Kovacs-Litman A, Wong K, Shojania KG, Callery S, Vearncombe M, Leis JA. J Hosp Med. Jul 5 2016; [Epub ahead of print].

This study compared covert hand hygiene observation by students to traditional overt hand hygiene audits. Investigators found much lower hand hygiene performance with covert observation, especially for nurses, suggesting that covert observation may be more accurate. These results demonstrate the challenge of achieving optimal hand hygiene compliance.

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