I had the same problem when I worked in health care - caused by over-washing and under-moisturizing my hands. The doctor said it was a type of eczema.

For treatment, I used the neutrogena Norweigan hand cream several times during the day and immediately after I washed my hands everytime I washed them, and at night I would slather my hands with hydrocortisone cream and put cotton gloves on to sleep so that the hydrocortisone cream did not get everywhere.

I would also wear rubber gloves (vinyl or latex) as often as possible even at home for things like doing the dishes so that I didn't have to wash my hands or expose them to water. I even wore gloves in the shower to reduce the amount of soap/water on my hands since too much water and soap was the cause of the problem to begin with.

Mine was very bad - cracked, bleeding, blistering - and it cleared up in about a week once I started using good hand cream, hydrocortisone at night, and reducing my contact with soap/water and Purell-type instant hand sanitizers (even the aloe types are extremely drying).

Hope that helps,
Liz