Infection Control

[madwife2002, BSN, RN]

Part of my job is auditing infection, so when my niece recently was in the ER for food poisoning I was shocked at the total lack of infection control!

1/ I never saw them wash or sanitize their hands once during the whole 4 hours

2/ They didnt put gloves on at all

3/ They never alcohol swabs on anything.

Now I know I could have said something but felt I was being critical and disrespectful towards the nurses, has anybody ever felt this as a nurse and visiting hospitals?

I said to my sister, they don't wash their hands, did you notice, she didnt notice and didnt want me to make a fuss.

So my question is are we practicing Infection Control or is that just wishful thinking?

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Bad nursing....when I worked the ED. I always had a pocket filled with alcohol wipes....IV heploc caps...hand sanitizer and washed my hands entering and exiting every room. I am guilty of not wearing gloves a lot... but I wear them when soiling is probable.

To not do so would be gross.

However....as an example....when I moved to New England....quite a while ago now. I remember the ED I worked in, that was in a very busy, very exclusive/wealthy community, didn't wash the stretchers/gurneys in between patients because "it took too much time" and "they didn't have time for that" for their "patients were clean" I was stunned. I was the loud mouthed malcontent for pointing out that wasn't ok and washing the beds in between patients. I got cast into the role of the non team player...for quite a while...until they failed a survey.

Another thing that drove me crazy when I was supervising...when did double bagging isolation paraphernalia go out of style? I know they say it no longer matters....but we did it years ago and didn't have rampant multi-drug resistant epidemics...makes you wonder.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

I've been a patient a lot lately. I can't believe how rare swabbing IV caps before connecting something is. It's disturbing. It takes 15 seconds. When I did finally confront people about it, as politely as possible, I couldn't believe the excuses I heard from, "Your immune system works" to "I forgot you were a nurse." Hand washing was better. People also wore gloves.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

If everyone (nurse, doctor, tech, etc.) did hand hygiene every time, then there would never have to be spies to check on hand hygiene compliance for staff. Yet, there are such spies/auditors...i.e. hand hygiene is not always what it is supposed to be. Plus alcohol swabbing is a no-brainer.

I am guilty of not wearing gloves a lot... but I wear them when soiling is probable.

Quite frankly, the glove policy in my hospital is silly. Technically, we are supposed to put on gloves every time we go into a room. Going in to take the pt a blanket? Glove up. Taking the patient a ginger ale? Put gloves on as soon as you enter the room. IV pump beeping? Don't you dare touch that button without a gloved hand. The particularly annoying thing is that we have such a policy to improve customer service scores.