GP PRO study finds five inconvenience-related factors that prevent health care workers from following hand hygiene protocols; reasons are emergencies needing immediate attention, busy schedule, broken or unable to access dispensers, difficulty with gloves

May 20, 2022 (press release) –

According to a recent survey, five common factors, all related to inconvenience, prevent health care workers from properly following a facility’s hand hygiene protocols.

Late last year, GP PRO conducted proprietary research with health care clinicians on the hand hygiene compliance rate within their organization’s protocols for using alcohol-based hand sanitizer. The study found that the top five ranked reasons why workers didn’t follow protocols were:

• Emergencies requiring immediate attention (66% of respondents)
• A busy schedule or full workload (66%)
• Malfunctioning, broken, or empty hand sanitizer dispensers (51%)
• Hands being full and, therefore, unable to access a dispenser (50%)
• Difficulty sanitizing hands during glove-on/glove-off process (50%). 

“Lack of hand hygiene compliance primarily comes down to inconvenience,” said Ronnie Phillips, Ph.D., GP PRO’s health care division senior director of innovation. “These health care workers know their facility’s policy, and they want to follow that policy; but our research shows that the very nature of their jobs in combination with the nature of how hand sanitizer is made available to them prevents them from doing so.”

About GP PRO
Based in Atlanta, Georgia-Pacific and its subsidiaries are among the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of bath tissue, paper towels and napkins, tableware, paper-based packaging, office papers, cellulose, specialty fibers, nonwoven fabrics, building products, and related chemicals. The company operates approximately 150 facilities and employs approximately 30,000 people directly and creates nearly 89,000 jobs indirectly. GP PRO, a division of Georgia-Pacific, manufactures and sells well-known brands like ActiveAire®, Angel Soft® Professional Series, Brawny®, Compact®, Dixie®, Dixie Ultra®, enMotion®, and Pacific Blue™. GP PRO products meet restroom, foodservice, and break room needs for office buildings, healthcare, foodservice, high-traffic, lodging, retail, and education facilities, plus a wide range of industrial and manufacturing facilities in North America. For more information, visit www.gppro.com. 

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