The UTMB Health System officially launched the Protect Our Patients (P.O.P.) Hand Hygiene Initiative on Wednesday, April 4, with events at John Sealy Hospital’s Café on the Court. The initiative is designed to increase compliance with hand hygiene guidelines in all UTMB hospitals and clinics.
The kick-off included displays from the P.O.P. Star Bottle Contest. Forty four clinics and units from across the health system participated by decorating 2-liter soft drink bottles as famous “P.O.P. Stars” to enter.
The Overall Champion “P.O.P. Star” won lunch for its clinic/unit courtesy of Health System Executive Leadership and Healthcare Epidemiology. Posters, printed information and over 600 bottles of 2-ounce bottles of hand sanitizer were also distributed; Healthcare Epidemiology staff members were available to provide information and answer questions.
As part of the initiative numerous permanent gel dispenser locations will soon be “POPPING” up all over the health care facilities.
In the meantime, we appreciate your diligence to hand hygiene and also to your being willing to speak up and politely ask people entering and exiting rooms to gel or wash their hands. Let’s make UTMB Hospital and clinics the safest place for patients!
The Health System would like to extend a very special thank you to each of the clinics and units that participated in the P.O.P. bottle decorating contest. A tremendous amount of creativity and effort went into the entries and participation in the contest exceeded expectations!
Nine judges that serve in various roles in the Health System scored the contest entries based on originality, effort, creativity, and Overall Champion. A Crowd Favorite Award was also selected based on over 250 fan favorite votes. For pictures of the entries please refer to
UTMB’s Facebook page or the
UTMB Hand Hygiene website.
The winners for the contest are:
Originality: Bunny Spears, Pedi/Pedi ICU
Effort: Star Child of Kiss, Geriatric Clinic (Multispecialty Center and Stark Diabetes Clinic)
Creativity: Michael Jackson, UTMB Access Center
Crowd Favorite: Lady Gaga, Island Pedi East/UHC 7th Floor
Overall Winner: Miss Piggy, Gyn Onc/J5C