1. Your Five Moments explained Home based care
WHO Five Moments approach to hand hygiene
April 2009

2. What are the Five Moments?
An approach to hand hygiene developed by The World Health Organisation
Aims to ensure hand hygiene is geographically appropriate
Aims to ensure hand hygiene is temporally appropriate

3. Why was the Five moments approach developed
To reduce unnecessary hand hygiene
To stress the importance of the correct location and time for hand hygiene
To ensure the chain of transmission is broken by hand hygiene and thus prevent HCAI

4. What is a Moment for hand hygiene?
A moment is a temporal point, i.e. a specific time marked by a point in staff workflow
A moment is not a reason, or indicator, for hand hygiene
Each moment is a time when many indicators for hand hygiene can occur

7. What is an indicator for hand hygiene?
An indicator for hand hygiene is an individual action carried out someone providing care
This can be any action that can be considered as belonging to one of the Five Moments
This specifically applies to actions which take place within a patient zone

8. Patient zone
This is an area in the immediate vicinity of the patient where care is provided
In a patients home this only exists at the times when care is being provided
However it is not specific in relation to types of professional or types of care be they medical, social, nursing, supportive, mental health or any other

10. The care recipient
The word patient is used to describe the care recipient
This is because the five moment approach was developed for in-patient care
Locally you may use any term you wish to describe the care recipient

11. When do patient zones exist?
Only when a someone resides in an area where care is provided
The patient zone ceases to exist when the care provision ends
The patient zone includes equipment used at the point of care

12. WHEN? WHY? Clean your hands when approaching a patient
at the point of care
WHY?
To protect the patient from
harmful germs carried
on your hands

13. Moment one Occurs before first contact with a patient
Occurs as near to the point of care as possible
May occur in combination with other moments

14. WHEN? WHY? Clean your hands immediately before any
clean/aseptic procedure
WHY?
To protect the patient from
harmful germs from the
environment, and
themselves, being introduced

15. Moment two
Important to stop introduction of environmental pathogens to the patient
Also stops invasive introduction of the patient own flora
May be combined with moment one, but ONLY if the first patient contact is a clean/aseptic procedure
This moment will be more relevant to certain professions than to others

16. WHEN? WHY? Clean your hands immediately after an exposure
risk to body fluids, including
after glove removal
WHY?
To protect yourself against
harmful germs from the patient
and patient zone

17. Moment three
The rationale for moment three is to prevent contamination of care providers with germs carried in patients body fluids
It is important to realise that even if gloves have been worn during a task this constitutes an exposure risk, once gloves have been removed the hands cannot be considered clean until moment 3 has been complied with

18. WHEN? WHY? Clean your hands after touching a patient when
leaving the point of care
WHY?
To protect yourself, and the
next patient, and their home
against harmful germs from
the patient you are leaving

19. WHEN? WHY? Clean your hands after touching any object or
furniture in the patient zone,
even if the patient is
not present or has not
been touched
WHY?
To protect yourself, and the
next patient, and their
home against harmful germs
from the patient zone you
are leaving

20. Summary
There are some key definitions within the Five Moments approach
Moments
Indicators
Point of care
Patient zone
Compliance
These are illustrated and explained in the DVD My Five Moments for hand hygiene and supporting presentations

21. Reference and support
For references see the resource pack reference list
For support contact the cleanyourhands campaign coordinator in your organisation
For more information see the cleanyourhands campaign website at