Management measuring handsanitizer and soap usage

Nurses General Nursing

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Another recent new campaign unrolled at my hospital is the measuring of how much handsanitizer and soap is being used on the units, and comparing it with how much somebody somewhere figured out on paper that SHOULD be used, divided by the amt of pts.

We were wondering, is management short on REAL work to do? :uhoh3:

So, I had a wonderful inspiration! Every night near the end of my shift I get a towel and saturate it with handsanitizer and proceed to disinfect the unit. After all, germs can be spread via the phone, counters, doorknobs, computer keyboards, etc... ;)

Our unit won the competition, wouldn't you know it! The day nurses even got in on my sceme! :lol2:

Actually, it was a competitition, they declared a winner, had a graph up that compared the departments. That reduced it to a big joke amongst my collegues. Since I'm the unit clown at times, I came up with this idea of cleaning the counters and keyboards with the stuff, and even the more serious nurses thought it was funny.

When management treats us like school children, and has a competition between units, the same that teachers do with who will be the quietest table, it's not likely to get a respectful response from nurses who consider themselves professionals.

Specializes in Research, ED, Critical Care.
Actually, it was a competitition, they declared a winner, had a graph up that compared the departments. That reduced it to a big joke amongst my collegues. Since I'm the unit clown at times, I came up with this idea of cleaning the counters and keyboards with the stuff, and even the more serious nurses thought it was funny.

When management treats us like school children, and has a competition between units, the same that teachers do with who will be the quietest table, it's not likely to get a respectful response from nurses who consider themselves professionals.

Just wondering how many and who reported your behavior to management? We wonder why we are not treated as professionals..................

The last facility i worked at monitored sanitizer and soap use in an inventive way.

The housekeeping supervisor would deliberately put an empty container in the bathroom or in a patient's room. Then see who bothered to mention that it needed to be refilled.

It was really scary at first. She reported that sometimes it would take as long as a week before anyone reported the container empty!

Once we knew we were being monitored that way, we all we red-faced but it did increase hand-washing!

Specializes in geriatric.

i wish our hospital monitored it. maybe then we wouldn't come on and find empty soap dispensers, paper towel dispensers, and alcohol dispensers. it wouldn't even be so bad if they would leave us a key to them and supplies to refill them. housekeeping leaves at 2:30 pm and doesn't come on until 6:30 am.

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I work at a hospital that does hand-washing research. We often have projects such as the ones you describe. While it does seem silly at times, a lack of proper hand hygiene is often the cause for the spread of infection.

Some of you have said that you are offended that the hospitals are trying to monitor the staff's hand hygiene practices -- that no one should be checking up on your practices because you are professionals. Well, you'd be surprised at how many professionals don't clean their hands properly. Research confirms the lack of proper hand hygiene over and over again.

In fact ... one of the hallmarks of a profession is that it monitors and "polices" its own members - and that its members willingly accept such regulation of their practice by their professional peers. To think that "As a professional, I don't need to be monitored" is one of the most unprofessional attitude of all.

Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Education.
In fact ... one of the hallmarks of a profession is that it monitors and "polices" its own members - and that its members willingly accept such regulation of their practice by their professional peers. To think that "As a professional, I don't need to be monitored" is one of the most unprofessional attitude of all.

:yeahthat:

The last facility i worked at monitored sanitizer and soap use in an inventive way.

The housekeeping supervisor would deliberately put an empty container in the bathroom or in a patient's room. Then see who bothered to mention that it needed to be refilled.

It was really scary at first. She reported that sometimes it would take as long as a week before anyone reported the container empty!

Once we knew we were being monitored that way, we all we red-faced but it did increase hand-washing!

hmm...when I come across an empty sanitizer/soap container, I just find another one to use and trust that the housekeepers will do their jobs effectively and refill it when they come around and notice it is out. So, an interesting experiment, but it doesn't necessarily mean that people aren't using sanitizer/washing their hands.

Another weird thing they do is once a month the safety committee goes through the sharps containers to monitor compliance with the needle policies. We all think that's weird that they would be going to such efforts and removing the sharps from their safe container, and go through them. We get an email report every month on how the units are doing adhering to sharps safety.

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SAY WHAT??!!!!!!:confused: OMG! And I thought they were nutty at my place!!:lol_hitti

HA...that's funny. Doesn't suprise me but it's funny !If that's what you get to do in management sign me up! Never mind, I think it's more fun to play games with those that THINK they rule! You must work for a magnet hospital like I do. After all , saving on such things affords them to give such nice gifts such as lunch bags for christmas, while the people at the top who think of such marvolous things get a big bonus!

The last facility i worked at monitored sanitizer and soap use in an inventive way.

The housekeeping supervisor would deliberately put an empty container in the bathroom or in a patient's room. Then see who bothered to mention that it needed to be refilled.

It was really scary at first. She reported that sometimes it would take as long as a week before anyone reported the container empty!

Once we knew we were being monitored that way, we all we red-faced but it did increase hand-washing!

If you are talking about one empty container in a room, I think this says more about the housekeeping department not doing their job restocking the essentials. Did this really increase handwashing or did it increase reporting of empty containers? BTW I worked as a housekeeper in a hospital and checking & refilling dispensers was part of that job. Guess this housekeeping supervisor found a way to get the nurses to monitor whether or not HER staff is doing their job.

Empty paper towel, TP, and soap dispensers were quite common place where I worked. Pretty bad when you have to go to 2-3 different sinks to find one that had soap or paper towels. Pretty bad when patients complain about no TP. Pretty bad when the doctors are complaining. Pretty bad that the next day the same dispensers would be empty, despite the fact that a housekeeper had been there all day. Usually we would stack paper towels by the sink along with soap since we did not have a key to open the dispensers or use a sink that still had stock or we would place hand santizers at the empty sinks. Due to numerous complaints to the right people and incident reports filed this situation is no longer common place.

Planting one empty dispenser on a unit doesn't necessarily indicate that nurses are not washing their hands, what it does indicate is that they won't be doing it at that particular sink.

Specializes in ER, critical care.

Well if they were waiting for me to use the alcohol foam hanging on the wall they would be waiting a long time. I hate that stuff. My hands are dry enough without continuously putting alcohol on them. I use the soap and water method.

However, the alcohol foam and a soft cloth is excellent for cleaning my glasses.

My favorite soap was the foam soap with hibiclens in it. We don't get to have that soap anymore.

Studies have shown that alcohol-based handrub is less drying to the skin than soap and water, as long as it contains 1-2% emollient.

Boyce JM, Kelliher S, Vallande N. Skin irritation and dryness associated with two hand-hygiene regimens: soap-and-water hand washing versus hand antisepsis with an alcoholic hand gel. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2000;21:442-448.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the frequency of skin irritation and dryness associated with using an alcoholic-hand-gel regimen for hand antisepsis versus using soap and water for hand washing.

DESIGN: Prospective randomized trial with crossover design. Irritation and dryness of nurses' hands were evaluated by self-assessment and by visual assessment by a study nurse. Epidermal water content of the dorsal surface of nurses' hands was estimated by measuring electrical capacitance of the skin.

SETTING: Miriam Hospital, a 200-bed university-affiliated teaching hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-two nurses working on three hospital wards participated in the trial, which lasted 6 weeks.

RESULTS: Self-assessment scores of skin irritation and dryness decreased slightly during the 2 weeks when nurses used the alcoholic-hand-gel regimen (mean baseline score, 2.72; mean final score, 2.0; P=.08) but increased substantially during the 2 weeks when nurses used soap and water (mean baseline score, 2.0; mean final score, 4.8; P<.0001 visual assessment scores by the study nurse of skin irritation and dryness did not change significantly when alcoholic-hand-gel regimen was used baseline final were both but increased substantially nurses soap water score mean p=".05)." epidermal content dorsal surface hands changed little deviation electrical capacitance reading decreased became dryer with soap-and-water hand washing>

CONCLUSIONS:[/b] Hand antisepsis with an alcoholic-hand-gel regimen was well tolerated and did not result in skin irritation and dryness of nurses' hands. In contrast, skin irritation and dryness increased significantly when nurses washed their hands with the unmedicated soap product available in the hospital. Newer alcoholic hand gels that are tolerated better than soap may be more acceptable to staff and may lead to improved hand-hygiene practices.

http://www.handhygiene.org/downloads/HHRCnonclinmodule123002.ppt

(If course this is not necessarily true for everyone, as per the poster above).

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