INFECTION CONTROL THE VITAL INGREDIENT
Healthcare chiefs and hospital trusts are continually coming up with new ways of improving infection control to curb the spread of illness. But none of these measures can work without one essential component. Liam Mynes from Tork manufacturer Essity reveals what it is.
Cleaning and hand hygiene are both crucial in healthcare where infections are much more likely to spread via soiled hands and surfaces than clean ones.
As a result, healthcare establishments are constantly introducing new protocols designed to improve cleaning standards and boost hand hygiene compliance.
These strategies come in many forms. Posters and stickers reminding staff members to wash their hands and pointing out the importance of thorough cleaning are a measure employed by some hospitals.
Others equip their medical personnel with badges that light up green when they have washed their hands and flash read when a hand hygiene opportunity has been missed.
A fairly recent innovation is the monitoring system that keeps ‘score’ of all staff members’ hand hygiene records. For example, the University of Michigan Health
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uses software that generates weekly and monthly reports and provides comparisons by unit and role.
However, none of these systems can work without one vital ingredient: the willingness of the people involved to adhere to them.
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The importance of hand hygiene in healthcare became particularly evident during the global pandemic. Yet study after study reveals that many healthcare professionals are still not washing their hands as frequently – nor as thoroughly – as they should.
According to the World Health Organization, staff need to perform hand hygiene before touching a patient, before carrying out any aseptic procedure, after any exposure to body fluid, after touching a patient and after touching the patient’s surroundings.
WHO also states that a healthcare worker’s visibly- soiled hands should be washed with soap and water for
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