In support of World Hand Hygiene Day on May 5, Essity will make its Tork Clean Hands Training available free of charge through a web-based desktop version for use on computers, The training is also available on mobile devices through a downloadable VR app, enabling healthcare professionals across the globe the ability to train on hand hygiene routines anywhere, at any time. The theme of this year’s World Hand Hygiene day is “Seconds save lives – clean your hands!” to highlight the life-saving importance of clean hands. The Tork Clean Hands training is designed to highlight critical moments in hand hygiene to help improve compliance in hand hygiene and drive behavioral change—which can have a significant impact in saving lives.

A study shows that 8 out of 10 healthcare professionals would like to improve their hand hygiene compliance.[1] But traditional forms of hand hygiene training are often perceived as uninspiring. Tork Clean Hands Training invites users into a digital world where they can interact and train on the World Health Organizations (WHO) ‘5 moments of hand hygiene’ in a realistic environment.

“Hand hygiene is critical in healthcare, and the recent pandemic has made it even more so. Healthcare professionals do tremendous work to achieve hand hygiene compliance and protect their patients and themselves, but at the same time they continually look for ways to improve. By making the Tork Clean Hands Training available on easy-to-access platforms, we can make hand hygiene happen by empowering healthcare professionals to train when and where they want,” says Tom Bergin, Marketing Director - Healthcare, Essity Professional Hygiene.

Tork VR Clean Hands Training, which was a category winner at last year’s Amsterdam Innovation Award 2020, was developed in collaboration with behavioral scientists, world-leading experts in hand hygiene from the infection Control Program at the University of Geneva Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine Geneva, Switzerland as well as university hospitals around the world to make it intuitive and efficient as a learning tool.

The addition of a desktop version makes finding time for and being involved in performing hand hygiene training much easier. As an additional part of making the innovative hand hygiene training more accessible for healthcare professionals globally, the training is available in 7 languages including English, German, Polish, Dutch, French, Spanish and Arabic.

We are proud to make our hand hygiene training more accessible for healthcare professionals. Hand hygiene is an important subject and these improvements have the potential to save lives. Tork is also supporting hand hygiene by supplying high-quality hand sanitizer systems that are suitable for use in demanding hygiene environments. Tork sanitizer dispensers are compatible with care routines, and are fast and easy to refill. The flexible assortment truly suits customer needs,” says Tom Bergin, Marketing Director - Healthcare, Essity Professional Hygiene.

World Hand Hygiene Day was launched by the WHO to maintain global promotion, visibility and sustainability of hand hygiene in health care and to support the improvement of hand hygiene around the world. To learn more about World Hand Hygiene Day, visit the official page for World Hand Hygiene Day 2021.

To learn more about Essity’s Tork brand sanitizer assortment, or to access Tork Clean Hands Training, visit torkusa.com/cleanhands.

[1] Source: Survey among 1017 healthcare professionals in five markets: United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and Poland. The survey was conducted between 23 November to 7 December 2018 by United Minds on behalf of Tork and in collaboration with the panel provider CINT.