Hand hygiene
Hand hygiene is a major clinical health care settings problem in the United. Healthcare providers were their hands in less than half times than the recommended. I have selected the handwashing problem in the United States because over one million patients in a year acquire healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). It is a clear indication that we have to find a solution to protecting patients from HCAIs. Hospitalized patients have to be protected from HCAIs. Maintenance hand hygiene can provide a remedy for healthcare-acquired infections. However, the big question is, does hand hygiene among healthcare workers decrease hospital-acquired infections?
Sarah and Phase article “Hand Washing: Reducing Nosocomial Infections” discusses the importance of maintaining hand hygiene in healthcare settings. Furthermore, it explains the importance of reducing the incidence of nosocomial infections. It explains that in the US, the major causes of deaths are nosocomial infections and medication errors. They cause more deaths than breast cancer, automobile accidents, and AIDs. The article provides historical literature about nosocomial infections. For instance, in 1995, the infections led to at least 88000 deaths. The infections’ socioeconomic effect is increased mortality, cost, and admission length (Hammer & 453 Phase, 2013). The article provides a solution through designing of hospitals with handwashing, HVAC, single bedrooms, and materials. According to the article, nosocomial infections are effectively prevented through handwashing. Medical staff spread infections to patients by touching either contaminated equipment or patients. Healthcare staff is required to control and prevent HCAIs infections by disinfecting their hands occasionally before attending different patients. There are various reasons as to why health care workers fail to wash their hands. These include skin irritation, forgetfulness, ignorance, insufficient time, inadequate scientific knowledge, insufficient or inconveniently located sinks, inaccessible supplies, worker, patient’s interaction interference, and understaffing and workload. Finally, the article provides solutions to the handwashing hygiene problem. The solutions include medical education on the significance of handwashing, using dispensers as an alternative to sinks, using visual display and posters, and placing dispensers near the patient’s bed.
“Hand Hygiene: A Quality Improvement Project” article examines whether the knowledge health care workers increase due to the availability of educational hand hygiene materials in an acute health care setting. It is similar to the first article because it presents a history of hand hygiene as well as the current hand hygiene. Additionally, it provides the barriers that hinder medical professionals from exercising hand hygiene. The barriers are forgetfulness, skin irritation, insufficient time, understaffing and overload, and glove-wearing reasons, among others. The article concurs hand hygiene as an effective method of treating a patient’s health safety in a health care setting. Its solution is providing health professionals with educational materials on the significance of maintaining hand hygiene (Mitchell et al., 2017). The project created awareness about the benefits of hand hygiene in nosocomial infection prevention.
In conclusion, maintenance of hand hygiene among health care workers lowers healthcare-acquired infections. Healthcare worker’s hand hygiene can be achieved through hand washing and educating health care providers. The health care workers have to be educated on the benefits of hand hygiene to keep patients safe from HCAIs. Through understanding the benefits they will be able to recognize the implication of either observing or not observing hand hygiene. Finally, education has to be accompanied by suitably located handwashing sinks and dispensers in health care settings.
References
Hammer, S., & 453 Phase, D. (2013). Hand Washing: Reducing Nosocomial Infections. Retrieved from https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.cornell.edu/dist/a/3723/files/2013/09/Hand-Washing-Reducing-Nosocomial-Infections-2j1mlfb.pdf
Mitchell, A., Boisvert, E., Wilson, T., & Hogan, S. (2017). Hand Hygiene-A Quality Improvement Project. Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, 1(7), 1985-1988.