Variability in hand hygiene practices among internal medicine interns.

Hand hygiene compliance remains suboptimal among physicians despite quality improvement efforts. We observed hand hygiene compliance among 29 medicine interns at 2 large academic institutions. Overall compliance was 75%. Although 4 interns averaged <40% compliance, 14 averaged at least 80%. Given variability observed among individuals in the same training programs, targeting those with poor performance may be important in improving overall compliance.