Research at Dubbo, Orange and Bathurst has revealed that inpatients are not washing their hands of the responsibility of preventing hospital-acquired infections.
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Infection control nurses at the public hospitals in the cities are working with researchers from Sydney, Western Sydney and Charles Sturt universities on the research outlined at a symposium in Dubbo on Wednesday.
About 130 people at the sixth annual Western NSW Health Research Network (WHRN) symposium heard that inpatients wanted to know more about preventing hospital-acquired infections with the next phase of the research set to help them do so.
"It's about providing them with the necessary resources so they have the power to say to the doctor or nurse 'Have you washed your hands before you touched me'," WHRN chairwoman, Associate Professor Catherine Hawke, said.
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She said the research project was among countless being undertaken by clinicians and academics across the region in a bid to improve health services.
Associate Professor Hawke said the establishment of WHRN in 2013 had resulted in an "exponential rise" in research, which sought to prove if "great ideas, great innovation actually work".
"We really wanted to embed good, rigorous and quality research by supporting each other," she said.
WHRN has 350 individual members and a host of organisations on board including the Western NSW Local Health District which provided 25 scholarships for people in rural towns to attend the symposium.