Hand hygiene is the most effective approach for preventing and controlling infection transmission. Hand hygiene generally involves four methods: handwashing, antiseptic handwash, antiseptic hand rub, and surgical hand antisepsis. Handwashing is cleaning hands with plain soap and rinsing with water to remove dirt or microorganisms. However, it does not disable all organisms. An antiseptic hand wash involves using warm water and an antiseptic agent; a few antiseptics may be bactericidal or virucidal. An antiseptic hand rub reduces the number of microorganisms present. Surgical hand antisepsis helps to decrease the count of resident hand flora and kills the transient hand flora. It typically involves a hand wash using water-based antiseptic solutions or applying alcohol hand rubs. Hand hygiene should be practiced while caring for patients' non-intact skin or wounds and while moving from a contaminated body site to another body site on the same patient. Maintaining hand hygiene is also important before handling an invasive device for patient care, regardless of glove use, and even after removing sterile or non-sterile gloves.