Healthcare workers strongly agree that preventive behaviors
such as hand washing reduce the spread of MRSA (Siebert, Speroni, Oh, DeVoe,
& Jacobsen, 2014). Most healthcare
workers self-report that they “almost always” wash their hands consistently,
even though Siebert et al. report that anonymous observations reveal much lower
rates of hand washing compliance. Even
support staff who do not have direct patient contact need to be scrupulous with
their hand hygiene, because infection can be spread by using a community pen to
sign a form, or by reaching over to move a trash can closer to the bed. Why do
healthcare workers misrepresent the frequency with which they wash their
hands? How often do you wash your hands?
Siebert, D. J., Speroni, K. G., Oh,
K. M., DeVoe, M. C., & Jacobsen, K. H. (2014). Knowledge, perceptions, and
practices of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus transmission
prevention among health care workers in acute-care settings. American
Journal of Infection Control 42, 254-259. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2013.09.005
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI am curious if there are studies looking at the prevalence of hand washing based on specific settings, such as in a hospital versus outpatient. I personally know that historically I have not done a good job washing my hands as a part of working as a physical therapist in an outpatient clinic. But, I think I would naturally be more vigilant in a hospital. I have been working to improve my hand washing especially since I work with children, whom I like to lovingly refer to as little Petri dishes!
Jodi
Hi Jodi,
DeleteI'm not familiar with studies related to outpatient PT clinics, but studies I've seen regarding the acute care setting suggest 40-50% compliance. Education and attention can readily raise those rates to over 70% rather quickly, and close to 100% over 5 or 6 years of continuous education and monitoring (Johnson et al., 2014). It seems that we need constant reinforcement to do the right thing. Thanks for your post.
Dan
Reference:
Johnson, L., Grueber, S., Schlotzhauer, C., Phillips, E., Bullock, P., Basnett, J., & Hahn-Cover, K. (2014). A multifactorial action plan improves hand hygiene adherence and significantly reduces central line-associated bloodstream infection. American Journal of Infection Control, 42, 1146-1151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2014.07.003
Good hand hygiene is an important part of prevention at the healthy system where I work. Employees are required to view webinars a few times per year on the importance of clean hands. Alcohol based hand sanitizing foam is abundantly located throughout the health system for employees and patients. We are required to sanitize our hands before entering a patient room and when leaving. We encourage our patients who attend our cardiopulmonary rehab program to use the hand sanitizing foam regularly.
ReplyDeleteHi Ash,
DeleteThanks for your post. The procedures you describe sound like a good basic approach to hand hygiene and infection prevention. I think that the more we standardize hand washing at work, the more successful we will be. If it becomes a habit, we'll be much more successful than if we leave it to conscious decision-making.
Thanks,
Dan