Clean Hands Save Lives Essay

The dirtiest thing you own maybe your cell phone. Imagine what touches your phone the most, probably your hands and face. Since cell phones are everywhere and have become one of the most helpful tools of our generation, they have their drawbacks. The use of cell phones happens everywhere today, one place being the hospital. From a study of phones and spreading of bacteria associated with health care associated infections, Karabay states, “Our study reveals that mobile phones may get contaminated by bacteria (such as Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae), which cause hospital infections, and may serve as a vehicle for the spread of nosocomial pathogens” (Karabay, 2007). Touching contaminated

Dirty hands is the common source of spreading infection. It is very important to keep hands clean to avoid getting infected and spreading infection in the community. It is important to wash hands to keep hands clean. There are two ways to keep hand clean, one way is wash hands with soap and warm water while rubbing hands together for minimum 15 to 30 seconds. Indication of washing hands with soap and water is when hands are visibly dirty, before and after eating, feeding, using the toilet, after coughing or sneezing, after using gloves, taking care of patients. There is also second way to clean hands, but it is advisable to wash hands with soap and water all the time, but it can ignore when soap and water is not available so it is okay to use hand gel or foam in the form of sanitizer. This helps to clean hands or kill germs when hands are not visibly dirty.

This experiment illustrates the importance of handwashing and proves that hand washing is worth it. Since our hands are constantly coming into contact with ourselves and others, touching surfaces, grabbing objects, being sneezed into, etc., keeping our hands clean is one of the most effective, yet simple way we can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others. Many diseases and conditions are spread by not washing hands with soap and clean, running warm water. “The human skin is a host to anywhere between 10,000-10,000,000 bacteria per square centimeter and since health care providers come into contact with pathogenic bacteria by being engaged in patient care, hand washing can reduce the risk of spreading diseases (page 3).” The objective of the experiment is to test the effectiveness of hand washing and demonstrate normal flora. This report presents the procedures and materials for the experiment, the experiment's results, and an analysis of those results.

Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) affect over 1.7 million patients each year, causing almost 100,000 deaths annually in the United States alone (Johnson, 2010). According to the World Health Organization, HAIs are the most frequent adverse event in the healthcare industry. Fortunately, most of these infections can be prevented with one single intervention, proper hand hygiene (“The Evidence,” n.d.). Four out of five pathogens that cause illness are spread by direct contact. Proper hand hygiene eliminates these pathogens and helps to prevent cross-contamination and HAIs (Linton, 2015; “Hand Hygiene,” n.d.). Reduction of cross-contamination and HAIs improves patient outcomes, increases employee wellness, and lowers health care costs. Adherence to proper hand hygiene is the single most important safety measure in the health care setting. However, for many years compliance to proper hand hygiene in the healthcare industry has been dismally low. New and inventive measures must be implemented to increase compliance to proper hand hygiene and lower the rate of hospital-acquired infections.

Rashes of sickness like the ones we’ve seen this summer really speak to the importance of handwashing and diligent adherence to health codes when you work in the food industry--but it’s possible that some things slip through the cracks.

This case study, finalized and updated onto the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, talks about the Multistate Outbreak of Salmonella Wandsworth Infections Linked to Veggie Booty. Publishing this outbreak onto their website makes it very beneficial and helps the public realize the importance of food health. Food health is just as important as overall public health. It is essential because people need to consume food in order to live, and if their food is tainted or contaminated, it would cause health problems and sickness and in some extreme cases, death. Ensuring food health will overall promote public health in the long run.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of hand hygiene and how it decreases the transmission of infection throughout (Bloomfield, Aiello, Cookson, O'Boyle, & Larson, 2007). Handwashing can include alcohol based hygiene items and handwashing with soap and water. This study main focus was on North American and Europe. There is plenty of supporting rationale to backup why this study was conducted. Some of the few things this study wanted to achieve are hand hygiene is key to staying healthy and reducing infection. This needs to be followed both in the workplace and around the community to abstain from infections. Handwashing can be achieved by soap and water or hand sanitizers that removes or eliminates many microorganisms on the surface of the hand (de Oliveira Dourado, da Costa Barros, Diogo de Vasconcelos, & da Silva Santos, 2017). This can impact many individuals by using this technique to keep foreign germs off of the hands. The importance of washing hands

Hand hygiene has been stated as the one main element that can prevent the spread of MRSA (Gould 2002). Washing hands is not kid’s stuff – not in the era of MRSA. Once entrenched MRSA can be extremely difficult to treat. If it gets into the blood stream it can be lethal (Belkum, Verbrugh 2001). Simor and Andrew (2001) also emphasise that hand washing is the most important control practice. It is essential because personal contact is the primary mode of MRSA transmission. Therefore good hand washing technique is vital to ensure that the decontamination is effective, as no soap will be effective if the technique is poor.

One of the commonest modes of transmission for infection is our hands. As care assistants, our hands come into contact with many possible infectious agents such as body excretions and secretions for example blood, urine, faeces, vomit and sputum. If good hand hygiene isn’t practiced, micro-organisms will be passed from one individual to another. General cleanliness, including general, environmental, equipment and materials reduce the sources of infection within the care home.

Healthcare associated infections have an impact on patients - how? Can be prevented greatly with compliance to hand hygiene protocols (REF).

Hands were wet by a running tap and antiseptic detergents or liquid soap (5ml was poured onto the hands, the technique consisted of five backwards and forwards strokes in the motion of; palm to palm, each palm over the other hand’s back, interlocking palm to palm, each palm over the other hand’s back interlocked and then the rotational scrubbing of the fingers into each palm finalised by the rubbing of the wrists during a 30-second time span. Then the hands were rinsed with water for 15-seconds and dried with two paper towels for 15-seconds. (Ayliffe et all, 1978) Whilst this technique has strict timescales the WHO elects the timescale of roughly the time taken to sing “Happy Birthday” twice. This raises concerns over the approximates as this will differ from person to person. The procedure itself remains nearly exact except from the addition of turning the tap off with a towel to avoid recontamination and the exact timings are lost. This technique only stated to use running water, however no temperature was specified. Hand Washing for Life (200-) advises that water should not be above 110F as this temperature would cause hands become damaged by loosing delicate tissues on the skin. This can cause bacteria to become trapped and more difficult to remove, as well as cause pain to the worker. It is a legal requirement for health professions to take the necessary measures to

Recent studies show that at any time, over 1.4 million people worldwide suffer from hospital-acquired infections (Public Health Ontario). In Canada alone, approximately 250 000 patients every year contract infectious micro-organisms from their healthcare providers (Nagel 18). At London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) we take pride in providing world class care in a safe, comfortable environment for patients. However, between 2008 and 2010 the LHSC still had between 20 and 30 per cent non-compliance to proper hand-washing protocol (Nagel 20). This data is very troubling considering it is following the launch of “Just Clean Your Hands” pilot project. As student nurses and volunteers of the LHSC team we are equally responsible to increase hand-washing compliance.

Curtis et al (2001) noted that modern methods of promoting handwashing can be effective and cost-effective on a large scale. Studies suggest that soap is widely available, even in poor households in developing countries, although it is mostly used for bathing and washing clothes (Borghi et al, 2002). In rural India and Bangladesh, soap is often considered a beautifying agent or for the physical feeling of cleanliness which it gives, rather than being associated with the removal of microorganisms or health benefits (Hoque and Briend, 1991; Hoque et al, 1995).

* Ensure public safety: A majority of salmonella species can be inactivated if the restaurant chain operates at documented pasteurization temperatures. However, in the event of the infection reaching the public, there is a significant morbidity and mortality rate. Hospitalization and death rates can be as high as 33% and 3% respectively. (Schlundt, 2001) Exhibit 1 shows the number of Salmonella-related deaths and death rates in the past 10 years.

The barracks are places great emphasis on cleanliness and well-being, both physically and leadership. In these places, even as much as a clean window is linked to physical cleanliness. More importantly, cleanliness is termed an indispensable fundamental of our role as a leader.