Importance Of Hand Hygiene On Health Care Environment

Roy, L. (2016). Maintaining hand hygiene to prevent the transmission of infection. Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, 5(6),

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.

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.

(McCaughey, 2016). The Center of Disease Control recommends hand washing with vigorous scrubbing for at least 15 seconds with soap and water. Using alcohol based gel hand sanitizer can be an appropriate alternative if soap and water is not readily available but does possess drawbacks including being ineffective against alcohol resistant bacteria. Programs for surveillance have also been implemented in hospitals with the intention of monitoring staff to ensure that policies are being followed to ensure the safety of the patients. Mandated reporting of hospital-specific rates and statistics for healthcare-associated infections has the potential to serve a purpose that could result in bringing down the instance for infection. Being forced to announce to the public infections rates versus other healthcare organizations has the potential for higher administration to implement better policies to assure their good standing in the eye of the

Over the years one of the leading causes of hospital acquired infection has been attributed to the poor hand hygiene. Whether it is due to the fact that healthcare workers are not sanitizing their hands between patients that can lead to cross contamination between patients, between staff and patients, or even staff to staff. Since a majority of hospital associated infections such Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) as are transmitted via contact and can remain on surfaces for up to thirty of more days it is very easy to transmit between patients with ineffective hand hygiene. There should be accessibility to both hand sanitizers as well as handwashing areas which would make it easy for staff, patients, and visitors to follow hand washing protocols. Studies done over the past on health care workers in reference to proper hand hygiene has shown that there is still an at least a fifty percent times in which proper hand hygiene is not performed (Ara, et al., 2016). On a daily basis a health care worker comes into contact of different microbes which are easily transmitted and according to the CDC not following the proper hand hygiene along with adequate solvent is reportedly the number one factor that contributes to HAI’s (CDC, 2015). Healthcare facilities are currently making handwashing more accessible by providing alcohol based hand sanitizers outside of patient’s rooms which are more visible to visitors and staff. Studies have shown several factors that contribute to the lack of proper hand hygiene, knowledge of the spread of infection via contact with contaminated hands, the importance of having solvents such as hand sanitizers being accessible and antibacterial soap, the understanding of the proper method involved in hand washing, understaffing is also a

Healthcare related with infections account for almost 80,000 deaths per year in the United States. Significantly the healthcare department supports hand hygiene decreases the transmission of healthcare associated pathogens and the incidence of healthcare associated infections. These days hand hygiene and improvements in healthcare associated infections is inflexible to verify in health care. World health organization (WHO) highly suggested that we need to practice hand hygiene. This will reduce infection in the health care facility. Compliance with hand hygiene practices among health care workers has generally very short. The main objective of these quality assurance programme is to prevent infection and awareness of the importance of hand hygiene in health care. Hand hygiene is a unlike the way of thinking about safety and patient care and includes everyone in the hospital together with patients and health care providers. Effective hand hygiene practices in hospitals play a key role in improving patient and provider safety and in preventing the spread of health care associated infections.

Hand hygiene has been an issue that needed enhancement. In the United States (US), 1in every 25 patients admitted in the hospital turn out to be infected, making it a total of 722,000 infections each year (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2016). These infections can be critical and very unsusceptible to treatment. Proper hand hygiene can be used to inhibit the transmission of disease-causing agents. Healthcare workers (HCWs) should exercise proper hand hygiene to inhibit the circulation of germs to patients. Hand hygiene should be done prior to patient contact, following contact with blood, body fluids, or non-sanitized surfaces, prior to invasive procedures, following taking off gloves and patient 's contacts. In

Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAI) have become popular in hospitals across the nation. These infections not only aggravate a patient’s condition, but also extend the amount of time spent in the hospital. Equally important is the resistance that these microbes are developing against antibiotics making them more difficult to treat. Hand hygiene has been known to be the single most important factor in preventing the spread of HAI’s among hospitalized patients (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014). Although hand washing is a simple task, healthcare providers still fail to comply with this requirement leading to an increase in morbidity and mortality rates (Chau, Thompson, Twinn, Lee, & Pang, 2011). Additionally, the increase

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

Ethical Considerations within Hand Washing Handwashing is one of the most important preventive measures when it comes to infection control and all healthcare professionals including nurses should have an ethical obligation to abide to proper hand hygiene. A study conducted by CUPE has exhibited that around 8,500-12,000 deaths in Canada per annum are attributed to healthcare associated infections (HCAI). HCAI usually develop as an outcome of the exposure to procedures and facilities of healthcare. If one needs to establish the simplest yet important nursing practice that helps in tremendous control and reduction in the contamination and infection spread, it would certainly be the maintenance of proper hand hygiene (Pratt, 2007). The various preventive practices that focus on interrupting the transmission

“The results of this qualitative study indicate that beliefs about the importance of self-protection are the main reasons for performing hand hygiene. Lack of positive role models among and social norms established by senior physicians may hinder compliance. The results from this study should inform methods for stimulating hand hygiene compliance in healthcare settings. If hand hygiene is indeed mainly influenced by the desire to clean oneself and by the behavior of other healthcare professionals, then workshops and courses that focus in patient protection may have little effect. The best methods for improving hand hygiene compliance may involve encouraging senior healthcare workers to be compliant and creating a supportive environment with readily available and easily accessible hand hygiene facilities”

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

Hand Hygiene in Healthcare Settings provides healthcare workers and patients with a variety of resources to reduce the spread of diarrheal and respiratory illness. Also, the latest technological advances in hand hygiene measure. Healthcare workers are obligated to continue to use healthcare antiseptic products recommended by CDC and HICPAC infection control guidelines and consistent with institution policy

Improving care can be tricky but necessary for the success of the organization. One way to improve the condition of the hospital is to ensure that patients are thoroughly examined to receive all necessary care during the initial hospital visit to lessen the chance of people returning to treat an ailment that could have been treated the first time. According to Rigby, Pegram, & Woodward, (2017), Hand washing can significantly reduce the spread of hospital acquired infections nonetheless, evidence suggests that many healthcare workers are not following the hand washing recommendation (p. 448). The organization must reiterate the importance of hand washing procedures to the staff but also inform them by avoiding this process is harmful to the

The main priority in my workplace is to protect the patients, visitors and staff from the risk of acquiring a hospital-associated infection. Most of our patients are immune-compromised due to treatment or disease, so we introduced a zero tolerance approach to poor hand hygiene. It is universally recognized that the hands are the primary source of cross-infection and good hand washing techniques are the main factor to prevent infection (Weston, 2013). We have enforced good hand hygiene practice by ensuring that all staff members are up to date with the mandatory yearly training and observing the 5 moments of hand hygiene. Family/visitors of patients are