Section One My first clinical experience for this nursing program was completed at New England Rehab Hospital. I walked in with some clinical experience but no experience in the realm of nursing or certified nursing assistants (CNA). During that first semester we followed CNAs to understand their job and gain basic nursing skills like bathing patients, bed making and other daily tasks. It was useful and I’m still happy we were able to have that experience. A situation that made me uncomfortable during that semester that one particular CNA never sanitized his hands when entering and exiting a patient’s room. In most hospitals and nursing facilities there is a “pump in, pump out” rule to abide by when entering and exiting a patients room rule to ensure health care workers are not spreading bacteria to themselves and other patients. This particular CNA admitted to me that he pretends to push the hand sanitizer and rub his hands together without actually getting any sanitizer in his hands. His reasoning was that he found it overly drying to use the sanitizer so frequently despite the hospital providing lotion as well. This was troubling to me because the rule is exists because research has proven it decreases infections in hospitals and the CNA was actively ignoring the risk he was bringing to his patients. I felt uncomfortable as the new student and the way he said it so nonchalantly made me feel like I simply did not understand how things really happened in hospitals yet.
My first encounter with a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesia (CRNA) was during my undergraduate nursing OB/GYN rotation. I was impressed with the CRNA when she placed the epidural to the patient in labor. I remembered patient had difficulty staying still due to the contraction, but the CRNA took her time to explain the procedure while comforting the distressed patient. Once the epidural was in placed and the medication started working, I could tell the relief the patient experienced. I realized then that a CRNA goes beyond the delivery of anesthesia, pain management and monitoring of patients. Thus, obtaining this degree will prepare me to ease the patient’s mind through education, pain management, monitoring, experience and compassion.
As part of my clinical experience at St. Joseph unit, I had an opportunity to work with my classmate, Kingly and Dat. Dat was a very kind and efficient nursing assistant and I felt fortunate to have had the chance to work with and learn from him. Our day together seemed as though it was typical for the residence. The first resident was Ms. Nancy; she is in room no. 220A. My duty gave her breakfast and feed her in morning. Upon waking Ms. Nancy I respected her privacy by always knocking before I entered the room and asking permission to enter. I have introduced myself and followed standard precaution by washing my hands before start any procedures. I tried to talk to her while I was feeding her. I tried to wake her up before the breakfast is over. She only ate 35% of her meal. Then, Dat showed me how to use a full sling mechanical lift to move Ms. Nancy to shower chair and show me how to use shower chair while showering Ms. Nancy. After finishing
Throughout my clinical experiences, there have been quite a few circumstances I have been placed in that have remained with me whether good or bad. All of them have been learning experiences for me whether it is how to improve and to do better next time from a mistake, for me to learn that this is or is not how a patient should be treated, how to handle family situations, and many others. One experience that I was able to participate in that will remain with me because I had not experienced this before was during my critical care rotation in the fall of 2015. This patient was dying and we were implementing comfort care for him.
Public health nursing is an important aspect of nursing field, which contributes tremendously to the safety and health of our society. Public health nurses work hard to assure our communities are healthy and are able to attain needed support to be self-sufficient. However, it seems their hard work goes unnoticed by vast majority of our society. This of course, is my opinion, but I would say that if I were to survey various communities, most people would say that “Nurses just work in the hospital”. I could be very wrong.
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.
Its the duty of CNA to make sure that their patients have good and clean hygiene that will help them on their road to
A couple of years ago, my mom got a bellybutton pain in her lower-right side of the abdomen. It was an intense pain which moved all around her belly. She decided to ignore the pain, thinking it could be something temporary. Days went through and nothing could relieve the discomfort she felt. My dad decided to take her to a private doctor right away. The doctor had her do some blood tests accompanied by some others. When the results were ready the doctor asked us to take mom immediately to the hospital. He said something related to surgery and I lose control on myself. We had never been as scared of surgery as this day. We knew this kind of surgery was not as risky as others. The problem was hospitals in Honduras. Doctors back then did not care about the patient. Patients in the hospitals would get their wounds infected and they would die. I lacked trust in the abilities of the doctors. Not because they missed the knowledge required in doing this, but their interest in the patient was none. They knew the government was going to pay them either way. Therefore, they mistreated some patients. My mom received a
This policy was adhered to most of the time. Some nurses made the decision not to adhere to the policy and procedure regarding contact precautions, presumably because they had decided they would not going to be touching the patient or their surrounding area! As mentioned earlier this is a risky way to behave.
S: How was your clinical experience this week? This week was an okay week. I spent most of my time trying to get back into the swing of things. I was a little rusty at the beginning of the week but it got better as the week went on.
Hospital and other health care facilities should set strict guidelines on infection control to sanitary officers, caregivers and family members as long as they come in-contact with an inpatient.
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
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
Among reviewing CNAs at a long-term care facility, it was seen that some CNA’s did not take off their gloves between giving perineal care of a patient after the patient used the bathroom and the CNA reached for the patient’s attire to put on the patient for that day. The CNA put every patient at risk of contracting the infection and the patients clothes could have became a source of C-diff. There are many cases similar to the one above where health workers are in a rush and do not perform their job/skills that they have been taught correctly. Health workers being in a rush also is due to shortage of staff. The CNAs at the long term facility discussed in this paragraph work a 9:1 ratio, which causes challenges for the health workers to give quality care to the patients.
First of all i would like to say that when i first arrived i was kind of nervous butexcited at the same time ireally did enjoy my experience on my clinical field shift so anyways when i first arrived we introduced ourselves to each other then we did a walk around the ambulance making sure the lights, signals, and etc. was working properly then the EMT took me inside the ambulance to give me a breaf overview of all the supplies and equiptment that is stored in the back of the ambulance soon after that the paramedic arrived so therefore we proceeded to start our shift