How Do Nurses Play A Pivotal Role In Nursing Practice

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

Your hands are a means of transmission for infection, and by donning gloves and using proper hand hygiene we can disrupt transmission. Hand hygiene is a simple and effective tool in controlling infection. By the nurse disregarding any use of PPE or hand washing techniques she increases the risk for pathogens to travel from the nurse to other patients.

Hand hygiene is the most effective way of preventing the spread of infections. Most hospital-acquired infections are spread via the hands of the healthcare workers. According to the CDC, about 2 million or 1:20 patients are infected with a hospital acquired infection. Hand washing includes washing hands with warm water and soap or antiseptic hand sanitizers. (book, 540) Programs have be developed to observe the nurses, doctors, and other NICU workers to see if they were following the current hand hygiene guidelines. In this program faculty was observed for a baseline assessment then given a questionnaire asking the employees what they knew about hang hygiene. The assessment was monitored by nurses that were trained in hand hygiene and observation

According to Hsu (2014), “health care-associated infections are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among hospitalized patients” (p. 377). Almost 75,000 annual deaths are caused by the healthcare associated infections (HAIs), placing them as a seventh leading cause of death in the USA. The peri-operative nurses play a substantial role in protecting patients and healthcare workers, from agents causing infection, by breaking the chain of infection. Numerous chances exist in peri-, intra-, and post-operative settings to introduce pathogens to clients via the operative site, access of peripheral or central catheter, and the use of invasive devices. Furthermore, blood-borne pathogens can be introduced to the patients by the use of unsafe injection practices. Unsafe handling of soiled sharps or sharps without safety locking mechanisms, places the healthcare workers at a higher risk for exposure to blood-borne pathogens (Patrick and Hicks, 2013). Application of standard precaution in those clinical settings can contribute to lower risk of HAIs.

What would possess an individual, female or male, to pursue a career in emergency room (ER) nursing? ER management and nursing careers offer fast-paced with critical thinking that individuals can pursue. Nursing in the emergency room can be achieved in as little as two years of college. This respectable career places the lives of others in your hands, during the most stressful times of their lives. Successful emergency room operations strive to create a positive work environment for employees, as success and education is transferred into care provided to patients. Through collaborative efforts with Press Ganey and other hospital consumer agency surveys, the implementation of nurse-leader rounds is statistically significant as it optimizes patient care experiences. Providing optimal, safe, and cost-effective care is rewarding to move beyond the nurse patient relationship.

Preventing infections in the hospitalized patient always has been a performance measure and is part of The Joint Commission’s national patient safety goals for 2015 (Joint Commission, 2015). Controlling infections in the hospitalized patient is an evidenced-based practice known to improve patient's health, reduce costs, prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAI), and prevent the spread of multi-resistant organisms (CDC, 2013). Hand hygiene is the routine use of hand washing, antiseptic hand wash, antiseptic hand rub, or surgical hand antisepsis (CDC, 2013). In the hospitalized patient the routine use of an alcohol-based antiseptic hand rub or antiseptic hand wash to remove or destroy any transient microorganisms and decrease resident flora

Hand hygiene is recognized by infection prevention and control experts as the single most important intervention in decreasing the spread of infection in both healthcare and community settings. Because the hands are vectors for transmission between people as well as inanimate objects such as environmental surfaces (i.e., blood pressure cuffs), it is critical to practice frequent hand hygiene using the traditional soap and water or an alcohol-based hand rub as appropriate. The 2009 World Health Guidelines for Hand Hygiene for Healthcare Settings identifies five ways the nosocomial transmission of pathogens from one patient to another via a healthcare worker's hands can occur:

Infection control in a hospital setting continues to be a major concern and hospitalized patients of all ages are susceptible to healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). The primary tool the nurses have at their disposal is handwashing with either the use of soap and water or alcohol-based disinfectants. The choices available in most clinical settings depend on time constraints (Will it be easier and faster to use alcohol hand rub than washing with soap and water?), environmental restrictions/factors such as the absence or

Patients under contact or droplet precautions may force nurses to put gloves, face masks, and gowns outside their rooms (Tomas, Kundrapu, Thota, Sunkesula, Cadnum, Mana & Donskey, 2015). While appropriate PPES should be followed; there are a number of nurses who always walk in without proper attires while handling patients. It is even a norm that family members do not also wear PPEs when visiting their loved ones who are ill (Edmond, Masroor, Stevens, Ober & Bearman, 2015). The result is that they are infected with the viruses and they also spread it onto others without worrying about the effects of such measures. Nurses who have made it a habit of not following the PPE contact precaution protocol are always blamed on their ignorance of the fact that they are not immune to similar infections. Some nurses can be aware of the effects of not following the contact precaution protocol, but may not know exactly the procedure that should be taken after a clinical rotation in an orthopedic medical surgery (Anderson, 2015).Various medical institutions have their own procedures to stay safe from infection when attending to patients. To some interns, it takes time to understand guidelines such as what the patient should have when being transported to a different unit or how often to carry out hand-washing. This comes about as a result of lack of

Two million patients yearly get an infection when they are in the hospital (VA. Gov). Using good hand hygiene helps with cutting and spreading from room to room. One way to stop the spread is when entering a patient’s room, please wash your hands, and then again, after leaving the room. Sanitize as a standard should have them posted outside the patient’s room as well as inside the rooms, make for great excess. Although it is a practice that everyone should practice routine at home and at work, you never know what type of germs you are picking up, throughout your regular

patients get a hospital-related infection every year and 99,000 die from their infection. According to The Joint Commission (2017), "Hand hygiene is critically important to safe, high quality patient care". (The Joint Commission, 2017) We should be mindful of our patients as well as ourselves, because we are also at risk of getting infections. However, this can all be minimized if health care workers follow appropriate hand hygiene practices and understand when alcohol-based hand sanitizer is effective for improving patient safety.

Through the learning from previous weeks, I learnt that the major issue in health-care delivery is healthcare associated infections(HAIs). It is essential for everyone to follow the infection prevention and control practices that both patients and health care workers are likely to be infected. The use of Standard Precautions can help to prevent cross contamination and thus minimizing the spread of infection. Standard Precautions includes the use of personal protective equipment(PPE) and Hand Hygiene(HH). We all know PPE can help nurses from exposure to infectious agents and use of barriers with hand hygiene throughout the process. However, I used to perform donning and removing PPE in a wrong sequence. If you perform in a wrong sequence, it is possible that these PPE will failure to give protection, for example infectious agents may attach to your hands if you remove gloves prior to gown. A study found that only 57% healthcare workers removed their PPE in a wrong sequence, which increased the risk of infection (Zellmer, Van& Safdar, 2015).

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), an estimated 1.7 million infections resulting in 99,000 deaths occur as a result of hospital acquired infections each year. The health care worker’s hands are the most common mode of transmission of healthcare-associated pathogens. Hand hygiene remains the leading preventive practice that can break the chain in the spread of hospital infections. However, this problem is still one of the most overlooked preventive measures in patient care. To improve the performance of hand hygiene among health care workers, performance barriers such as time, forgetfulness, and poor access to hand hygiene materials need to be addressed. Consistent performance improvement with this practice insures a reduction in infection rates and is a major component not only of patient protection, but healthcare providers as well.

Ms. Gillooly practices from a holistic point of view, considering the complex needs of the dialysis dependent patient. She employs critical thinking skills and keen assessments to develop the best plan of care for her patients. Also, she understands the range of emotional and spiritual needs of the chronically ill population. Melissa’s goal for taking care of her patients’ is that she wants to make the difficulty of coming in for dialysis three times weekly, a little easier. She is able to strike a balance of comforting support and sharp nursing skills. She functions in the charge nurse role, whereby she independently seeks out and assumes additional responsibilities and takes a leadership role in identifying, developing, and implementing plans to resolve identified problems. In addition to the charge role she is a preceptor for nursing students and a mentor for her colleagues as she demonstrates leadership in these roles. Her assessment and careful evaluations of her patients’ estimated dry weights has led to a decrease in cardiac risk factors associated with episodes of fluid overload. Of her 6 primary patients, none have been admitted into the hospital for any cardiac and or fluid overload episodes, which is often associated with ESRD patients.

Most professions are identified, recognized, and associated with certain concepts and terminologies that define the particular profession. For the nursing profession, the concepts of health, illness, disease, disability, and wellness are words that most people use to define the role of nurses and the practice of nursing. A better understanding of the definition of these terminologies would provide a framework by which clinicians could build upon to create effective practices, educate patients and families, and provide awareness to the community resulting in a healthier society.