Not Performing Hand Hygiene

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).

This article was a non-research article, it discussed the barriers within the healthcare system with proper hand washing. The three barriers are: (1) equipment challenges, (2) insufficient data quality & quantity, and (3) ineffective education. The equipment challenges are that soap or sanitizer are not available, empty dispensers, or inconvenient location for the healthcare worker. These barrier can lead to a miss hand hygiene opportunity or a potential infection. Many hospital are unable to collect sufficient data to assess the compliance of hand washing, this can affect the quality of patient safety. Recommendation from Joint Commission is continuing education to reinforce healthcare workers, the understanding of proper hand hygiene.

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

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.

There are numerous evidence-based practice interventions that have become standard nursing practices across the country. Hand hygiene is a nursing practice intervention that is currently evidence (research) based. It is one of, if not the most, important interventions practiced in providing standardized care. The rationale behind that statement refers to the high percentage of hospital acquired infections; hand hygiene practices are measures used for maximum effectiveness in reducing the spread of these infections. Compared to the various health care professionals who come in contact with patients when providing care, nurses are by far the largest faction that implements the highest quantity of direct patient care in health care. That said, of all the asepsis precautions, techniques, and interventions that are currently in place, hand hygiene is the single most effective intervention used by nurse to prevent themselves from infection and the cross-infection to their patients. Although this evidence-based intervention is of utmost importance to implement at all times, research shows the difficulty in influencing nurses and other health care professionals to practice hand hygiene as often as recommended.

Recent studies have indicated that healthcare workers do not sufficiently recognize the importance of hand hygiene and compliance with

This paper will discuss the importance of the use of isolation precautions, and hand hygiene. It will discuss how a nurse named Sophie helps mentor a new CNA staff member to the team by constructively teaching him about proper use of Personal Protection Equipment and good Hand Hygiene. It will also give an example a constructive way for Sophie to address the problem at hand. Sophie is what you would call a Link Nurse. The purpose of a link nurse is to reduce the infection rates of the facility of employment. The nurse will mentor staff and teach by example along with watching different tasks and giving good constructive feedback. The paper will narrate some of the teaching Sophie gives Miguel.

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.

First, reducing the risk of healthcare associated infections is implemented a few different ways. One of the ways is proper hand hygiene, by setting goals to improve the compliance of employees it will aid in lowering the percent of healthcare associated infections. This doesn’t just reduce the risk for infections but it mostly reduces the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. (May 5: Hand Hygiene Day, 2014) About 2 million people in the United States obtain infections that are resistant to antibiotics and over 22,000 people die from these infections every year (May 5: Hand Hygiene Day, 2014). Hand hygiene isn’t just about washing your hands there are other aspects to hand hygiene that are just as important. The Joint Commission has issued specific guidelines that follow hand hygiene and require that organizations are to comply with these guidelines to remain accredited. (Joint Commission, n.d.) Many aspects of hand hygiene that are monitored such as when to wash, how long to wash for, which cleaning agents to use, when it is appropriate to use disposable gloves, and whether or not it is acceptable to wear artificial nails or jewelry. (May 5: Hand Hygiene Day, 2014)

One the main roles healthcare workers (HCWs) can do is to provide patients with a safe environment whilst they are in the healthcare setting. In providing clinical safety to patients HCWs are ensuring that the patient will be safe from preventable adverse events occurring to them whilst they are in the hospital setting. Patient safety should be a of high priority to the healthcare setting and HCWs. Nursing staff are the main providers of care to patients whilst in the healthcare setting and have many responsibilities in delivering safe patient care. Whilst in the healthcare setting patients are vulnerable and at the hand of healthcare workers, thus it is extremely important for healthcare workers to maintain hand hygiene. To maintain a

According to Pirie (2010) hand hygiene is very important to perioperative practice and over the years has become more important for health

In this essay the focus will be on the significance of hand hygiene within the care of patients and problems relating to the compliance of this. The essay will explore legislations such as The NHS Constitutions YEAR, Nursing and Midwifery Council Code of Conduct YEAR and the 6Cs of nursing, focusing on the relevance of these in relation to hand hygiene practice.

Hand hygiene is everybody’s job, including the patients. Linda Pearson (2006) refers to AL Damouk et al (2004) who suggests that inviting patients to become partners in their care maybe an appropriate response to reports of the rising incidence of healthcare associated infections and difficulties with