Hand Hygiene For The Health And Mortality Of Their Patients

Hand hygiene practices are important thing to infection prevention and control practice. As health provider especially ED staff or front liner, to follow hand washing protocols is necessary in any situation. According Practice Standard (2009) four major elements to preventing practice; hand washing, protective barriers, care of equipment and health practice of nurse. Cite from Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland, scientists has found around 45% of infections can be prevented by washing hands regularly. MOH (2010) increasing in hand-washing compliance by

Another problem that goes with the lack of hand-hygiene compliance is the many excuses that healthcare workers use to avoid washing their hands. Hass and Larson summarize (2009) some of the barriers to adherence that healthcare workers use, “a lack of access to hand-washing sinks, insufficient time, skin irritations, and lack of accountability” (Hass & Larson, 2009). Some solutions they explain to combat the barriers are to put more alcohol-based sanitizers where sinks are not around and placing them all over the patient care areas also reduces time and can be a suitable way for proper hand hygiene if the healthcare worker’s hand is not soiled. They also describe, “Involve staff in trying several alcohol-based hand sanitizers before deciding on one, and involve employee health services in creating a plan to manage hand-skin problems among staff. Alcohol-based sanitizers that have lotion in them can be helpful for staff who have very sensitive skin” (Hass & Larson, 2009).

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.

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.

Keeping our hands clean is one of the most effcient and important steps we can do as humans to avoid getting sick or spreading germs to other people. Unwashed hands spread many diseases such as the flue, E. coli, and salmonella. Unfortunately, hand hygiene is still one of today’s most leading causes of infection in health care facilities. The risk of clinicians, patients, and visitors not complying with hand hygiene protocols creates a practice problem for nurses and their patient care. The cause of health care infections, also known as, health care-associated infections (HAIs) are increasing along with the rise of the inability to control or treat infections that are multi-drug resistant. Lack of proper hand hygiene is a major problem in clinical settings sourcing from critical care divisions where the most contaminations are prevalent. This paper will discuss how hand hygiene affects the nursing process and solutions of how to better prevent HAIs within the nursing scope of practice.

One of the main problems is hand hygiene and evidence suggests that healthcare staff including nurses do not perform this task as often as they should nor do they use the proper procedure. Even though it is

This study was intended to prove that hand hygiene practiced according to the CDC guidelines will decrease the incidence of hospital acquired infections. This could not really be proved in this study since the hospitals were not able to maintain improvement in hand hygiene. Health care workers were familiar with guidelines but significant practice changes were not maintained. Some of the infection rates did improve during this time but the correlation with hand hygiene is not consistent. There were other practice changes occurring during this same time and those changes may be responsible for the decreased infection rates.

A campaign called, “Clean Hands Save Lives” endorsed by the CDC in the year 2015 put an emphasis on five simple steps to avoid or reduce illnesses. The steps are the following and to be carried out in that order: wet, lather, scrub, rinse, and dry (Potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall, pg. 458). In addition to performing hand hygiene, gloves must also be used when handling any type of specimen. The use of PPE or Personal protective equipment is important as it protects the wearer from any type of injury or infection. (PPE) Healthcare facilities disclose the type of contact precaution outside a patient’s door. For example, a label for Airborne Precautions indicate that a respiratory protection device (N95 respirator) must be worn in order to enter the room and while interacting with the patient. A room with Droplet Precautions requires the use of a mask or respirator. On the other hand, a room with Contact Precautions indicates the use of gloves and gowns, and a room with category Protective Environment requires protection with HEPA filtration, mask, gloves, and gowns (Potter et al., pg 459).

CDCs clean hands count campaign aim to improve healthcare provide adherence to hand hygiene recommendations, address, myths and misperceptions about hand hygiene and empower patients to play a role in their care by asking or reminding healthcare providers to clean their hands and the most germs that cause serious infections in healthcare are spread by people’s action, every patient is at risk of getting an infection while they are being treated for something else, hand hygiene is a great way to prevent infections and healthcare providers clean their hands less than half of the time they should, good hand washing is the first line of defense against the spread of many illness.

Generations of people have considered handwashing a measure of personal hygiene. In 1847, Dr. Semmelweis insisted that healthcare providers wash their hands with disinfecting agents between patients. This early hand hygiene practice resulted in a decrease in mortality rates among hospital patients (CDC, 2002). The CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee published the Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Health-Care Settings in 2002 that is based on hand hygiene foundations developed in generation past. In 2014, this guideline is still available online and used as a reference

Hand hygiene is a general term that refers to any action of hand cleaning. This include disinfecting agent such as alcohol or soap and water. Hand Hygiene ought to be directed by healthcare professionals before seeing patients, after contact with organic liquids, before intrusive techniques, and in the wake of expelling gloves (Burns, Bradley, Weiner, 2012). The WHO offers a slight variety by suggesting five key moments when human services specialists ought to practice hand cleanliness: before patient contact, before an aseptic errand, after natural liquid presentation hazard, after patient contact, and after contact with patient environment. Intercessions included expanding sink or liquor based arrangement accessibility, instruction, and

“By washing our hands and having good hand hygiene we are showing the patients, their family and everyone around that you care enough about the well-being of the patients to make sure you are not

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

Hand Sanitiser is a liquid substance that was invented to enable humans to wash their hands without the use of soap or water. Hand Sanitiser was invented by a student nurse, Lupe Hernandez, she thought the idea of alcohol and gel together could clean hands in a situation where there was no access to soap or water. This ‘idea’ was produced in Bakersfield, California 1966. It’s a faster technique to achieve clean hands in a short period of time. Hand Sanitiser kills a variety of pathogens that regular soap may leave behind.

* Hand washing is the most important method of preventing the spread of infection by contact (Ayliffe et al 1999). The Nottingham University Trust Policy on Hand Hygiene (2009) states that there are three types of hand hygiene, the first is ‘routine hand hygiene’ which involves the use of soap and water for 15 – 20 seconds or the application of alcohol hand rub until the hand are dry. The second is ‘hand disinfection’ which should be used prior to an aseptic procedure by washing with soap and water and applying alcohol hand rub afterwards. The third is ‘surgical hand washing’ which is the application of a microbial agent to the hands and wrists for two minutes. In addition to which a sterile, disposable brush may be used for the first surgical hand wash of the day although continued use will encourage colonisation of microbes. The third example is the most appropriate to any O.D.P undertaking the surgical role as it is the best way for the surgical team to eliminate transient flora and reduce resident skin flora (World Health Organization 2010). The first and second are important to any O.D.P undertaking any other role within the Operating Department as this is the best way to reduce the transient microbial flora without necessarily affecting the resident skin flora