North Carolina Dental Board – Dental Laws and Infection Control License Practice Exam

Hand hygiene relies on giving the antiseptic product enough contact time to kill microbes on the skin. For routine antiseptic hand wash, the minimum time required to destroy transient microorganisms is fifteen seconds. This duration ensures the active agents contact all hand surfaces and effectively reduce microbes before patient contact. Shorter times such as five or ten seconds don’t provide enough exposure, while thirty seconds goes beyond the minimum needed for normal hand hygiene.