The Personal Touch Risk Assessment and Training Tool

Some dining facilities and many bars turn the lights down to create a mood of relaxation and take the edge off the sharp realities of life away-from-home. In all restaurants, lucky for us diners, the hand-prints of both previous customers and staff remain invisible. Out-of-sight is of little consolation to those charged with protecting customers and staff from norovirus and hep A - two of the most difficult and prolific foodborne illnesses.

Handwashing For Life's Personal Touch is a combined risk assessment and employee training tool. It is a simple chart which helps prioritize those touches that should trigger a handwash. The vertical axis rises from the clean to the heavily contaminated surface while the horizontal axis increases in transfer probability from left to right. In the attached template four high priority touches have been included to get started.

An assessor, usually the manager or their designee, first takes the information from the Dirty Dozen analysis. Then each staff position is visually monitored to see who touches what in the course of executing their accountabilities, looking particularly at their intersections with the high-risk, high transfer surfaces.

The Personal Touch chart is filled in and reviewed and refined with the Person/s-In -Charge. This is now ready to help train and motivate the staff to wash their hands at a Safe Level quality (ProGrade) and frequency.