What area do you work? and do you change clothes before you leave your workplace?

[Vtachy1]

Wondering how many change clothes because of infection control. Home health and hospice nurses do not change clothes between patients or hospice visits between nursing homes. As a hospice nurse I have even visited a hospice patient at the high school during school hours and did not change clothes before I entered the high school.

I got in some trouble because I let my students change at their locker rooms (where their hairbrush, deodorant, supplies etc is) in school instead of changing at the hospital at the LTC that we do clinicals at.

[klone, MSN, RN]

I work in a clinic, and do not change clothes before leaving work. I very rarely do anything that would create a fomite (!!) risk.

When I worked inpatient L&D, we wore hospital scrubs, and I did change at work.

I guess if that is the school's or hospital's policy, that's what you need to do.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

I work in a SICU, and I don't change before leaving the hospital. My young kids don't give me a hug until I have changed, and we never wear shoes in the house (cultural thing). I wear PPE properly at work. Therefore I don't worry too much, any more than I do wearing my street clothes to Wal Mart and touching those shopping carts, and possibly being exposed to MRSA in the community, or TB, or flu, or whatever.

When I was in school we never changed before leaving either.

Nearly all the people I've seen change before leaving the hospital are the ones who work in units that use hospital-issued scrubs for staff-to-pt infection control, e.g. burn, L&D, OR etc.

[firstinfamily, RN]

As a student nurse, we never changed before leaving our clinical sites, no matter what area we were assigned to. I also have not heard of nurses routinely changing unless they were in one of the high risk areas such as OR, PACU, L & D, where they were supplied with hospital issued scrubs.

[I love my cat!]

I work in a Hospital and I change into street clothes prior to leaving. My facility provides scrubs, so I never arrive/come home in work scrubs.

[tarotale]

ER. that should explain lol

[RunBabyRN]

The only units or facilities I've seen require such are ones that provide scrubs, and even then, occasionally people go home in them for various reasons.

[JBudd, MSN]

They provide scrubs in my ER, but most of us don't use them (very ill fitting, no useful pockets). We come and go in our own scrubs, unless grossly splashed during a trauma or something. But we use PPE gowns, masks and booties when we know a major trauma is coming in.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I do not change my clothes or shoes prior to going home. I work in inpatient acute physical rehabilitation, a.k.a. recovery from major CVAs, MIs, etc.

There are more germs in the community than there are in a typical healthcare setting. The people who touch grocery shopping carts and ATM machines have C-diff, MRSA, VRE, ESBL and other bugs. Many of these people do not wash their hands after toileting, either.

[LilRedRN1973]

I work in a prison infirmary and no, I do not. Mainly because there are no facilities in which I could change (it's a men's prison). I do not wear my shoes inside the house, however. And my scrubs are taken off immediately and put into the hamper. My husband has been working in the same prison for 14 years and he has never changed prior to coming home. I joke that we are never sick nor are our kids because we have built up quite the immunity due to all the crap floating around the prison.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

ICU with half the patients on isolation. Scrubs are provided.