Originally Published by Infection Control Today
Let’s assume that hand hygiene compliance has increased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Now the challenge for infection preventionists (IPs) and others on the frontlines of infection control and prevention: Sustain those gains. But how? Employ the concepts of behavioral change, including informal leaders, social pressures, cultural norms, and immediate and personal feedback. Informal leaders are people within a work area who are respected and seen as individuals who can be trusted and followed.
Informal leaders can either undo an intervention or change it if they don’t accept it, or they can vastly move a program forward if they are brought in as a stakeholder from the beginning. Social pressures and cultural norms exist on a large scale down to a small scale, such as a profession, hospital, unit within a hospital, and even a shift within the unit. These norms dictate acceptable behaviors, and social pressures can change the norms to reflect changes in what is acceptable for that particular culture.
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