Predictive Infection Control Study

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

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.

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

Patients have observed several physicians and nurses not washing their hands before interacting with patients. Hand hygiene is one of the largest tactics to combat nosocomial infections. The hospital should adopt a culture of 100% compliance with hand washing. The first step would be to increase handwashing stations and have more quick-dry alcohol-based antibacterial soap dispensers. Making access easier and decreasing the time taken to wash one’s hands would encourage adherence the policy. Furthermore, each floor should track hand washing and report data of potential nosocomial infections caused by improper handwashing. Keeping patients protected from bacteria is important especially when most are in an immunocompromised

Can you imagine the misery of being admitted to the hospital, only to become infected with a separate illness? Healthcare-associated infections are defined as infections not present and without evidence of incubation at the time of admission to a healthcare setting. (CDC, 2016) These infections are acquired as an indirect result of the necessity for the patient to endure a hospital stay. While the rate of these types of infections has decreased in recent years, nearly 1.7 Million cases of healthcare-associated infections are reported annually according to the Center for Disease Control. Healthcare-associated infections are a threat to patient safety and with just under 100,000 deaths a year resulting from healthcare-associated infections, more needs to be done to protect the people we have sworn to do no harm to.

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

Hand washing is the best defense against viruses and bacteria. Proper hand washing stops the spread of many diseases and infections. It's such an easy thing to do to help safeguard our family's health.

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.

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

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

Hospitals try their best to have a safe and clean environment, because most of the people there have weak immune systems. Therefore, they do not want to get people more sick than they already are. Hospitals are required to check up on surgical patients and make sure they have not developed any infections from any of the equipment used or from microbes and other sources. On the other hand, outpatient centers do not have to check up on their patients. People go to outpatient centers to get treated quicker and leave within hours, however, by doing this, patients are putting themselves at risk for infections. Viruses and bacteria spread very quickly and easily, therefore, it is not an easy thing to prevent. To be safe, all hospitals and medical facilities should make sure all of their equipment are sterile and clean and all their employees wash their hands at all times and are vaccinated to prevent the spread of harmful

AIHW (2013) indicates that in hospital settings, the HAI is largely due to the contaminated health care staffs’ hands. Observing hand hygiene is a recognized marker of efficiency in the inhibition of the spread of diseases (Centres for Disease Control (CDC), 2002). Hence, Hand Hygiene should be a central feature in controlling and abating hospital acquired infections.

Hand hygiene compliance is very relevant in health care. At study by Creel (2015) evaluates whether or not monitoring interventions improve hand hygiene compliance (Creel, 2015). Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) can be detrimental to not only patients but also visitors, workers, and families. Considering the fact that most patients in the hospital are highly susceptible of having compromised immune systems, it is imperative that healthcare professionals take the proper necessary precautions, such as effective hand hygiene, to decrease the risk of transmission. This is a cost effective management of infection control that can potentially save lives.

* Measurements of nurses skin condition and microbial density on hands compared using t test data obtained via crossover studies. Hand hygiene practices were reported on nurse diary cards and quality scores from direct observation were compared between products (ALC – hand sanitizer containing 61% ethanol and emollients or CHG – antiseptic detergent containing 2% chlorhexidine gluconate) with 10,000 patient days of follow up and overall infection rate of 14 per 1,000 patient days.

Among all nursing students and the majority of healthcare professionals, hand hygiene is understood to be a simple and important method of reducing nosocomial infections among patients. The guidelines stated by the CDC delineate specific, step-by-step recommendations in order to perform adequate handwashing. Though it may be proven and well understood, the actual compliance demonstrated by healthcare workers is severely lacking. The purpose of this literature review is to identify methods that help ensure continued compliance in reducing the transmission of communicable diseases via adequate handwashing. Approximately four research articles were selected to provide an overview of various methods used to promoting handwashing compliance. The methods used in selecting these articles were as follows: hand hygiene, improve compliance, and nursing. Articles older than seven years were excluded. An exception was made for an electronic publication detailing the history of infection control and asepsis; this was strictly chosen for its content despite being published in 2005. The following outcomes which may yield positive results were identified: increased education, implementing friendly reminders throughout the facility, installing additional handwashing stations or appropriate substitutes such as alcohol-based cleansers, and using student nurses as handwashing ambassadors. Due to the lack