About HHEA

Proof your excellence with your hand hygiene programme

Be part of a global movement. Proof your excellence in successfully reducing HAI rates by implementing a Hand Hygiene Program and apply for the award.

The Hand Hygiene Excellence Award (HHEA) was introduced in 2010 in Asia Pacific. This was right after the World Health Organisation (WHO) introduced their global campaign “SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands” led by Prof. Didier Pittet. It was also him that introduced the Hand Hygiene Excellence Award in cooperation with the Aesculap Academy. 
Based on the WHO Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework plus a few more criteria Hospitals from three regions can participate today to be honored for their work by the Hand Hygiene Excellence Award and become a role model for other hospitals. 

Message from Award Chairman

The WHO First Global Patient Safety Challenge Clean Care is Safer Care was launched in October 2005 to heighten awareness of the need to combat healthcare-associated infection to decrease patient suffering and increase patient safety. Ten years later, more than 130 countries and regions have initiated hand hygiene campaigns.

The SAVE LIVES Clean Your Hands annual global campaign was launched in 2009 and is a natural extension of the Clean Care is Safer Care program of work. On 5 May each year, the campaign aims to mobilize countries to focus on specific aspects of hand hygiene promotion and improvement. The role of hand hygiene in preventing the spread of drug resistant germs has been the focus for 5 May 2014 SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign. Evaluation and repeated monitoring of a range of indicators reflecting hand hygiene infrastructures and practices, as well as healthcare workers' and senior managers' knowledge and perception of the problem of healthcare-associated infection and the importance of hand hygiene, is a vital component of any successful hand hygiene campaign. Patients have a voice too!

Ensuring the best ways to gather patient participation in hand hygiene promotion and improvement, according to the local culture and facilities' current hand hygiene strategies take place. WHO makes available a range of tools to support these actions.

Over 17’000 healthcare facilities from more than 170 countries are responding to this call.

Our vision is to aim now for the participation of at least 30,000 facilities by 2020.

To pursue these objectives, the University of Geneva Hospitals WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety in conjunction with the European Infection Control Societies and Aesculap Academy would like to invite you to participate in the European Hand Hygiene Excellence Award. The Award is conceived as a platform to recognize, honor, and celebrate those hospitals and healthcare worker groups who have used their enthusiasm and knowledge to improve patient safety through the successful implementation of the WHO multimodal strategy in their healthcare facility. Another prize, the European Hand Hygiene Innovation Award, has now been created to stimulate creativity and novel solutions to promote improved compliance and sustainability in hand hygiene practices among the best healthcare facilities.

Professor Didier Pittet
Director Infection Control Program & WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient Safety
University of Geneva Hospitals Geneva, Switzerland