Jacob Is A High School Football Player Who Had A Chance At A College Scholarship

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.

Atul Gawande explains the single biggest problem facing hospitals in the spread of infection in his novel, Better. This is expressed in his conversation with the infection control team, where it is said that “their greatest difficulty is getting clinicians like me to do the one thing that consistently halts the spread of infection: wash our hands. (Gawande, 2007, 14)” He notes that diligence, one of his three core requirements for success in medicine, plays a huge role in enforcing a policy like handwashing. While everyone knows hand washing is important, especially in a hospital, letting health care professionals ignore the practice and make their own decisions about its criticality harms the whole population.

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

The hospital is compliant with infection control protocol according to the CDC standard guidelines. “Hand hygiene, contact precautions, as well as cleaning and disinfecting patient care equipment and the patient’s environment are essential strategies for preventing the spread of health care–associated infections. Hand hygiene is addressed in NPSG.07.01.01. Contact precautions for patients with

Prevention strategies of nosocomial infections related to poor hand hygiene include revision of: orientation, training processes, competency assessments, equipment cleaning, handwashing procedures, switching to the use of single-use IV flush vials, adding strategically located waterless hand rubs, defining supervisory expectations, conducting in-services, team trainings, and tracking systems (Infection control related sentinel events, 2003). Potential solutions to noncompliance include: consistent skin protectant application, reduced time required for handwashing, and antiseptic stations at the bedside and room entry points (Boyce, 1999). Hospital administrators must create an organizational atmosphere in which adherence to recommended HH practices are considered an integral part of providing high-quality care (Boyce, 1999). Improvement in infection control

“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

This assignment shall be identifying the evidence underpinning the skills and professional approach required in patient care. Hand hygiene is seen as a form of action that is done by using your hands to prevent the spread of harmful germs and infections, this action is performed by both healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients before assisting with personal care involving touching. There are many different types of hand hygiene actions taken in the UK, these include Surgical Antisepsis, wearing gloves, washing your hands with a soap or alcohol-based formulation hand wash. It is important to always remain protected when touching a patient, their surroundings or body fluid.

Nurses play a pivotal role in preventing hospital-acquired infections (HAI), not only by ensuring that all aspects of their nursing practice is evidence based, but also through nursing research and patient education.Hand hygiene is widely acknowledged to be the single most important activity for reducing the spread of disease.Personal protective equipment (PPE) is used to protect both yourself and your patient from the risks of cross-infection.Gloves should be worn whenever there might be

Summary: Prevention of transmissible infections is an important role of perioperative nurses and requires an understanding of the recommended practices to break the chain of infection. There are standard precautions to follow by the healthcare team as well as specific precautions in relation to how the infection is transmitted such as: contact precautions, droplet precautions, and airborne precautions. Healthcare workers must protect themselves

Microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites can be transmitted to patients via poor quality cross infection control measures e.g. inadequate cleaning, disinfecting and sterilising of instruments, equipments and surfaces around the hospital

Controlling infections in the hospital setting has been a major issue for hundreds of years. Patients have largely been effected by pathogens transferred from those appointed to care for them. Florence Nightingale became famous for changing the way we practice patient care. Her idea was simple yet powerful and it is still considered the standard worldwide. She promoted hand washing in order to reduce healthcare infections. Flash-forward a hundred years and we are now seeing infections increase through a different route. The CDC estimated about 31,100 central line associated blood stream infections occur each year (Control, 2015). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most commonly reported pathogens include coagulase-negative staphylococci, Staphylococcus aureus, enterococci, and Candida. (Tavianini, Deacon, Negrete, & Salapka, 2014). Although central lines was not yet a technology created in healthcare, implementing the fundamental skills as emphasized by Nightingale

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

Within the essay I am going to discuss whether good hand hygiene practices are the single most important factor in preventing cross infection. Some may argue for this statement others against. Jeanes A (2005) refers to the NMC code of professional conduct (2004) who state that you must act to identify and minimise risk to patients and clients.

* 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

A study completed by Karen McGoldrick had a surprising innovation to isolation precautions-take patients out of them. While this seems to be counterproductive, her findings were astounding. Because isolation patients have less interaction with their health care team, they are at risk for other conditions, such as falls, pressure ulcers, and feelings of isolation which can be detrimental to their mental health (McGoldrick, 2017). McGoldrick proposed to use strict universal precautions-such as frequent hand hygiene and gloving instead of placing patients in contact precautions (gown, gloves, special equipment). This research was conducted at a hospital with a 90% compliance rate of hand washing with patients in isolation for MRSA, VRE and Stenotrophomonas who did not have “active infections” (McGoldrick, 2017).