{"id":4576,"date":"2022-05-06T04:57:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T09:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heartandvascularmed.com\/?p=4576"},"modified":"2022-05-06T04:57:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T09:57:00","slug":"health-workers-leading-by-example-this-world-hand-hygiene-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/?p=4576","title":{"rendered":"Health workers leading by example this World Hand Hygiene Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

We spoke to 2 nurses about the simple, but critically important practice of cleaning hands and found out why hand hygiene is so important in the health-care environment.<\/p>\n

Miranda\u2019s perspective<\/h3>\n

\u201cAs health workers we do almost everything with our hands, yet hands can also be centres for germs and one of the easiest ways that infectious diseases can be spread to vulnerable patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miranda is a staff nurse working on a medical ward in the West Midlands, in the United Kingdom. Her role is very much \u201chands on\u201d \u2013 every day she meets patients, old and young, many of whom have just had surgery. Being in hospital, these patients need extra protection from a range of diseases that can easily spread through touch, from Clostridium difficile,\u202fwhich causes diarrhoea, to Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which can lead to skin infections and pneumonia, to COVID-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt our hospital we practice good hand hygiene at every point of our care \u2013 from before we go to see a patient to after we have left them,\u201d says Miranda. \u201cAs soon as you enter the hospital there are signs telling staff and visitors to clean their hands \u2013 with hand sanitizer gel dispensers in every ward, in all the ancillary rooms and at the end of each patient\u2019s bed. The message to clean your hands to stop the spread of infection could not be clearer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The importance of thorough handwashing was impressed on Miranda as a student nurse: \u201cDuring my training, we used ultraviolet light to visualize the germs left on our hands after half-hearted handwashing \u2013 it was frightening! Only after washing them properly did they almost completely disappear\u201d.<\/p>\n

By following her hospital\u2019s handwashing protocol, Miranda models the importance of handwashing for student nurses and visitors to the ward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can put all our protective gear on, but if we haven\u2019t washed our hands, we can still transmit infection. Just because we have access to sterile gloves, it doesn\u2019t do away with the need for handwashing. Hand hygiene is one the best ways to protect yourself, and protect others,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Emma\u2019s perspective<\/h3>\n

Emma is an advanced nurse practitioner working in a paediatric intensive care unit in the north-west of England, United Kingdom. The seriously ill children and babies in her care, many of whom are suffering from heart disease or cancer, often need a \u201ccentral line\u201d, a tube that goes directly into a vein. This poses an infection risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore touching a patient, I make sure that I\u2019ve cleaned my hands with alcohol-based hand rub solution first. And afterwards, I make sure I wash my hands too. I probably wash or clean my hands over 100 times a day. Because I\u2019m a senior staff member, I\u2019m very visible. That means I am a role model for the younger nurses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emma explains the importance of hand hygiene to every parent who visits a child. All the nurses on the unit have yearly refresher training. She also audits the unit\u2019s hand-hygiene practice, noting on a daily basis who is \u2013 and is not\u2013 cleaning their hands correctly, and feeding this back to staff. Last month, her unit achieved 95% compliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cHand hygiene is the simplest thing we do, but done badly, it can have a catastrophic impact, not just in terms of the financial burden on the health system, but also on rates of morbidity and mortality for our patients from hospital acquired infection.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a busy 13-hour shift, even Emma, as an experienced nurse, has to consciously make time for thorough hand hygiene. \u201cIf I\u2019m in a rush, I find myself back-tracking, thinking \u2018did I do that properly?\u2019. The thought that stops me is not wanting to be responsible for causing harm to any child in my care. Even in the winter, when my hands can become really sore, that\u2019s what motivates me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simple hand hygiene, through frequent cleaning, is critical in reducing avoidable harm and infections. Cleaning hands at the right time, with the right products, takes less than a minute, and protects individuals, patients and our health systems. Hand cleaning is also at the heart of our emergency responses to many infectious diseases, such as COVID-19 and hepatitis \u2013 being both a key protective measure and helping prevent further transmission.<\/p>\n

So, for this World Hand Hygiene Day and beyond, let\u2019s unite, talk and work together on hand hygiene for high-quality, safer care everywhere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We spoke to 2 nurses about the simple, but critically important practice of cleaning hands and found out why hand hygiene is so important in the health-care environment.Miranda\u2019s perspective\u201cAs health workers we do almost everything with our hands, yet hands can also be centres for germs and one of the easiest ways that infectious diseases…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":4577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medicalnewstoday_com"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}