Kristie Tran
Becca Gray
Writing 39C
29 June 2014
Spread of HAIs: Medical Staff Non-Compliance
In the beginning of the chapter "On Washing Hands", Dr. Gawande stated that the spread of hospital-acquired infections could be stopped if the medical staffs wash their hands frequently between each patient visits. The infections are carried through the doctors and staff members and then transferred to the next patients by "having shaken hands with a sniffling patient…most of [the staff] do little more than wipe [their] hands on [their] white coats and move on--to see the next patient" (Gawande 15). The various contagions that the staff encounter is known to cause deadly infections and about ninety thousand patients die from these
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Gawande mentions in the beginning of the book about the incident where his patient’s surgery time had to be delay since operating rooms were full and “there are only enough nurses available to cover seventeen of forty-two operating rooms” (Gawande 6). In that case, if each nurse took an extra minute after each patient they encounter to wash their hands, then there will about a twenty minute delay for each nurse since each nurse is responsible for checking in on twenty patients in an hour during their rounds. Since washing hands took too long for the fast-paced hospital setting, hospitals began to replace hand soap with easy to-go hand gel. The fifteen seconds hand rub-over gel saved time and increased the medical staff participation in hand washing to 70 percent, but hospital infection rate was barely affected by the change since there were still a 30 percent of non-hand-washers who are still transmitting the infections.
The nurses acknowledge the principle of washing hands but are having a hard time washing their hands because of they are having a difficult time applying the hand wash routine in their work force. Gawande demonstrates the medical staff’s inability to compliant the hand wash routine with his personal viewpoints and experiences. Throughout the “On Washing Hands” chapter, Gawande explained the importance of washing hands, the effect of not washing hands, and how to properly wash hands, demonstrating that he understands the concept of hand washing in
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
Hand washing is the topic for Community Teaching Plan. Hand washing means to wash hands with water and soap, but sometimes without soap to remove the dirt, soil and microorganisms from the hand. Author explains the importance of handwashing, indications proper technique of handwashing. This also covers how handwashing helps in control of disease and infection.
Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) affect over 1.7 million patients each year, causing almost 100,000 deaths annually in the United States alone (Johnson, 2010). According to the World Health Organization, HAIs are the most frequent adverse event in the healthcare industry. Fortunately, most of these infections can be prevented with one single intervention, proper hand hygiene (“The Evidence,” n.d.). Four out of five pathogens that cause illness are spread by direct contact. Proper hand hygiene eliminates these pathogens and helps to prevent cross-contamination and HAIs (Linton, 2015; “Hand Hygiene,” n.d.). Reduction of cross-contamination and HAIs improves patient outcomes, increases employee wellness, and lowers health care costs. Adherence to proper hand hygiene is the single most important safety measure in the health care setting. However, for many years compliance to proper hand hygiene in the healthcare industry has been dismally low. New and inventive measures must be implemented to increase compliance to proper hand hygiene and lower the rate of hospital-acquired infections.
Despite its barbaric reputation, the Civil War greatly impacted the sanitation systems used in today’s medical fields. One major impact in today’s sanitation systems, are the methods doctors and surgeons use to help prevent disease and infections. One way doctors prevent the spread of diseases, is by washing their hands for a full ten minutes before operating or examining a patient. This method of preventing diseases is efficient because it kills the germs that are on a medical officials hand and prevents them from spreading to the next patient from the doctor or surgeon palpating the patient (“Medicine During the Civil War”). This is one of the greatest medical innovations gained from the Civil War. Since there are now proper medical schools, doctors and surgeons are now able to realize the causes of certain bacterial and viral infections. Another way that today’s sanitation systems were affected from the Civil War, are the precautionary steps that medical officials take to keep today’s hospitals clean from bacteria and viruses. Today’s
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
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.
During this last visit, Dr. M made some mistakes which may have played a crucial role in Jacob acquiring an infection, or, in the least, contributed to negligence. After removing Jacob’s cast, Dr. M did not complete his examination of Jacob’s leg before he left the room to exam another patient, Sarah, in the room across the hall. Upon entering the room, he did not close the door. The most obvious mistake the doctor did was not washing his hands after his examination of Sarah, who has osteomyelitis, after which he returned to the first exam room to continue his examination of Jacob’s leg. Hand washing plays a major role in preventing cross-contamination when caring for patients. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2014), washing hands is an extremely important way to prevent the spread of infection from patient to patient or patient to health care professional. It is essential that all health care providers practice hand hygiene even if gloves are worn. There
To help the prevention of infection spreading is by knowing the method of washing your hand because we carry most bacteria sue to the open air that we come in contact with. For example we use are hands to shake hands with someone holding or touching objects. When you are performing any form of hand hygiene you will need to make sure that you have washed your hand with anti-bacterial liquid soap; this is to help prevent any bacteria which we already have on our hands. In all health and social care settings an automatic liquid dispenser should be placed so that when washing hands any individual doesn’t touch or need to even sneeze any part of the liquid
CDCs clean hands count campaign aim to improve healthcare provide adherence to hand hygiene recommendations, address, myths and misperceptions about hand hygiene and empower patients to play a role in their care by asking or reminding healthcare providers to clean their hands and the most germs that cause serious infections in healthcare are spread by people’s action, every patient is at risk of getting an infection while they are being treated for something else, hand hygiene is a great way to prevent infections and healthcare providers clean their hands less than half of the time they should, good hand washing is the first line of defense against the spread of many illness.
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
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.
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
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.
(Nagel 22). Student nurses and volunteers should place emphasis on hand-washing before and after contact