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Hand Hygiene

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Submitted By bribi97
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Hand Hygiene Change Project
Capstone NU296 September 18, 2013

Introduction

The lack of hand washing and/or hand sanitizing is a leading cause of nosocomial infections in healthcare facilities not only here in Nevada, but across the United States. Hand washing is one of the biggest contributing factors in stopping the spread of infections throughout the healthcare environment. Nosocomial infections could be dramatically reduced by monitoring and enforcing hand washing and/or “gel in, gel out” policies of each facility. This could also lower the length of stay per patient, and greatly reduce the medical care cost per patient.

Analyze the current situation and provide evidence based resources to support the need for change and your proposed plan. Include ethical, legal, or standards of care implications. Washing hands as promptly and thoroughly as possible between patient contact and after contact with blood, bodily fluids, secretions, excretions, and medical equiptment contaminated by patients is a huge element in infection control. Hand hygiene is recognized by infection prevention and control experts as the single most important intervention in decreasing the spread of infection in healthcare facilities. Unclean hands are the main transporters for germs between people and inanimate objects (i.e. blood pressure cuffs, bed rails, call lights, etc…). It is imperative to practice frequent hand hygiene using either the traditional soap or water method or by using an alcohol based hand sanitizer. Soap and water is still considered the “gold standard” for hand hygiene. Although hand washing may seem like a simple process, it is often performed incorrectly. Proper hand washing technique should be done by first wetting your hands, then applying an adequate

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