Patient Empowerment in Improving Health Care Workers’ Hand Hygiene Compliance: Evidence from an Agent-based Simulation

Hand hygiene conducted by health care workers (HCWs) is essential and critical in hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) control. Although there are guidelines about hand hygiene, HCWs’ compliance to the guidelines is generally low, imposing a very high risk for patients to get infected. In order to improve HCWs’ compliance, patients are encouraged to ask HCWs to clean their hands. However, it is reported that patients are reluctant to participate in HCWs’ hand hygiene management. In order to improve patients’ willingness of participation, this paper explores a set of drivers by using an agent-based simulation. According to the simulation model run by Netlogo, it shows that patient knowledge about the importance of hand hygiene in infection control and agreeableness of HCWs are positively related to patient willingness in involving in hand hygiene management. Gregariousness among patients has little impact on the intention. In addition, additional analysis shows that HCWs’ hand hygiene compliance at an initial stage and the number of beds in a ward can also affect patient intention of participation.