Patients are told to ask nurses: have you washed?

ARe they going to wash too? I have seen more docs not wash than nurses....


renerian

I read a study which concluded that physicians are least likely of all healthcare workers to wash their hands. Are they going to make the docs wear these badges, as well?

Kind of like when you are behind a semi on the freeway, and see postings on the backs of the trucks that say "Am I driving safely? If not, call 1-800 blah blah"

How about a sign in every hospital toom that says "Tell the administration of this hospital to staff appropriately, so that nurses have time to wash their hands properly."

um......do the the docs and cleaning folks have to wear them too?

Doctors with dirty hands a real problem

To comply with the health code, restaurant workers must wash their hands before working with food. Yet, hospital workers are notorious for not washing up before they work on patients!

According to recent research, hospital health care workers complied with handwashing rules less than half (48%) of the time. The other half, they interacted with patients without washing first.

"Noncompliance with handwashing is a substantial problem," researchers from the University of Geneva, Switzerland said. To reach that conclusion, a team of infection-control nurses observed health care workers at a Geneva hospital for one month.

Although it seems like a minor matter, cleanliness can be a life and death issue in a hospital. More than 80,000 deaths each year are linked to infections patients contracted while in the hospital.

These deadly infections are often passed to the patient through contact with doctors, nurses and other hospital workers. That's why most hospitals have strict rules about washing hands with antiseptic soaps -- a procedure which can greatly reduce infection risks.

But, in more than half the cases, the rules aren't being followed. The study found that the prime offenders were the doctors themselves, who were nearly three times more likely to skip handwashing than nurses.

The most shocking finding was that the compliance rate was lowest for those situations in which clean hands were most important. A particularly vulnerable situation is when health care workers have to move their hands from a part of the body known to be contaminated with bacteria to a relatively "clean" one, free of bacteria. Yet, during this high-risk activity, health care workers washed their hands just 11% of the time.

Even in those areas of the hospital where patients' lives and health would be most threatened by the possibility of infection, dirty hands prevailed. In intensive care wards, for instance, the compliance rate was a dismal 36%.

The researchers warned that "the real situation may be even worse than reported," since workers at the Geneva hospital being studied were informed of the investigation ahead of time and knew they were being watched.

SOURCE: Annals of Internal Medicine, Jan. 19, 1999.

http://www.wcanews.com/archives/1999/Mar/mar99f.htm

HEEEEEEEEEEECK YEA , BABY, now THAT is what I am talking about!

I wash my hands in the patient's room, where they can observe and I can do assessments/hx at the same time.

I rarely see the MD's doing so, unless it's pre- or post-procedure.

How about our stethoscopes? I clean mine several times a day, but it can't be nearly enough.

I wouldn't have a problem with wearing the button. I make a point of washing my hands in front of patients so they know it's been done. But what's sauce for the goose....yeah, make everyone wear them.

I really hated the buttons we had to wear at my last hospital, "Is there anything else I can do for you?" Man, they sucked.

if EVERYBODY has to wear the button then it is not so bad. (still ridiculous though) but the issue is going to be only certain groups having to wear the button when obviously , docs, nurses, pts, rts, cnas, etc... should all have to wear them because they all touch the patient.

Gwenith - Not sure how I'd cope with being slapped by a patient. In some ways is ok I guess if the ground rules were set in that she requires anyone that touches her to wash their hands in front of her. If she did the same to the orderly, visitors, doctors delivery staff I guess it's not so bad. But if it is only against nurses I would find it insulting

Having a child who has lived several years immunocompromised, you'd better believe I always asked (and this was back in the 80's). Nowadays like Tom said - I always wash my hands in plain sight of the patients/families and what's more I tell them why I'm washing my hands. Its not insulting, its good patient care!