Happy National Handwashing Awareness Week!
This week (December 4-10, 2022) is National Handwashing Awareness Week. As we all know, hand hygiene is a critical component of clinical care and patient safety. In this post we’ll be looking at handwashing campaigns at Mount Sinai Beth Israel over the years. (Click on the images for a larger view, or see the links below to view the item in our catalog.)
Nurse disinfecting hands in milk formula preparation room, September 1952 
Handwashing campaign in October 1981 of the Beth Israel Pacemaker (employee newsletter) 
Article from the February 1982 issue of the Beth Israel Pacemaker about BIMC’s handwashing campaign 
Infection control team demonstrating hand hygiene in the November 1994 issue of Eye on BI (employee newsletter)
These materials come from a variety of resources we have in our collection, including the MSBI photograph collection, Beth Israel Pacemaker (which has not yet been digitized), and Eye on BI. You can also see more photos from the Infant Milk Formula Room and the 1981-1982 Handwashing Campaign.
You can also read more about the history of Beth Israel, including through the “Building Beth Israel” series. An interactive map of Beth Israel historical locations is also available.
Authored by Stefana Breitwieser