Performing hand hygiene is an established way to prevent spreading germs to ourselves and others. It removes the microbial “hitchhikers” we pick up as we move about our day and perform our responsibilities.
Fortunately, it’s easy to do. Unfortunately, it often gets forgotten about among all of the other tasks we perform each day. Maybe we forget how what an important step it is in keeping our patients safe or maybe we just get too focused on the task that we’re doing.
Whether you’re a surgical provider, nurse, EVS tech, or have no interaction with patients at all, we can’t lose site that we pick up and spread contamination every time we touch something.
Recently, at CMMC, we performed hand hygiene observations to check on our electronic surveillance numbers and see how everyone was doing. Interestingly, with only a few exceptions, the compliance with hand hygiene was very similar, and not stellar.
We can, and have to, do better!
Be aware of the times when hands should be cleaned during patient care:
- Before touching a patient or their immediate environment
- Before aseptic task performance ex. inserting a catheter
- Before moving between a soiled body site to a clean body site on same patient
- After touching a patient or their immediate environment
- After contact with contaminated equipment
- Immediately after glove removal
We will be continuing to validate our hand hygiene compliance for Leapfrog, but more importantly, so that we can establish a culture of safety around hand hygiene. Our goal is to have everyone hardwire the process into all that they do.
Part of developing this culture is educating and empowering everyone to speak- up and hold each other accountable when they see that it isn’t being performed. This isn’t an easy task and may make some team members uncomfortable.
Remember that all feedback should always be done in a kind, considerate, and respectful manner AND be received in the same way. Some examples that would work include:
“Hi, you probably didn’t even realize it, but you just came out of that patient’s room and didn’t pump out.”
“Don’t forget to perform hand hygiene after you take off your gloves.”
“Did you pump in? I didn’t notice it when you entered the room.”
It might be natural to respond defensively, but when someone is advocating for the patient, the only acceptable response would be to say, “thank you”.
Your contribution to patient safety by cleaning hands the right way, at the right time, has a direct impact by decreasing your patient’s risk for Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI’s), stopping the spread of bacteria and viruses that cause respiratory and diarrheal illnesses, and keeps our hospital environment cleaner and safer.
If you have any input regarding barriers to performing hand hygiene that you’ve experienced, please reach out to the Infection Prevention Team.