Soap/Sanitizer usage competitions amongst hospitals

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.

This seems to be the latest and greatest in infection control. They measure hand sanitizer/soap usage, infection control tallies it up, and they compare it to other hospitals. Then, some organization publishes the winners.

Sometimes I wonder if this is a 'Make Work' program for people with advanced degrees. :rolleyes:

I think if all the paper pushing nurses would roll up their sleeves and do 'real work', there would be more nurses at the bedside, and better care!

How's that for a plan? :typing :saint:

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Specializes in Infection Preventionist/ Occ Health.

Unfortunately, when the Joint Commission comes in to do accreditation visits, they look at this data. Those of us in quality assurance, infection control and other areas who accuse of not doing any real work are providing benefit to the patients.

Many people are quiet on this issue until a family member is the victim of a medical error or contracts a hospital-associated infection.

There is a saying "If you don't measure it, you can't fix it". If we truly are committed to best practice and quality care for our patients, then ALL nurses will support these efforts.

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Specializes in ICU/ER.

Our infection control nurse has actually been known to complile pie charts of paper towel ussage between the various floors.

Takes the number of paper towel packs/by staff and comes up with some sort of formula stating who is washing thier hands more...

OK so now, when I wash my hands instead of grabbing the customary 2 sheets from the dispenser--well I am grabbing 4!! Ya were gonna win next quarter!! lol lol...

Would like to mention the hand washing report came a few days after the "laundry" report---apparently laundry is counting the poundage of the linnens we send down, and our goal is to LOWER that one--they also have that broke down by dept. in other words, we dont really need to change all their sheets every day....

So they want us to use more paper towels, but less linnens....OK my head is spinning..

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.

I beg to differ, BSN-2006. I'm sure that's what they taught you in school, but my real life experience tells me that there are too many chiefs and not enough indians in healthcare today.

I personally view nursing regulatory academia as a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that is creating red-tape in order to justify its own existance and provide perpetual job security.

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Specializes in ICU/ER.
Unfortunately, when the Joint Commission comes in to do accreditation visits, they look at this data. Those of us in quality assurance, infection control and other areas who accuse of not doing any real work are providing benefit to the patients.

Many people are quiet on this issue until a family member is the victim of a medical error or contracts a hospital-associated infection.

There is a saying "If you don't measure it, you can't fix it". If we truly are committed to best practice and quality care for our patients, then ALL nurses will support these efforts.

Do you ever follow a working nurse every day, from clock in till clock out? That would show lots of areas of improvment, I would like to see a report on staffing and infection control. As one would only think if the floor is short staffed the risk of infection goes up. Maybe if we could get something concrete from infection control that would help nurses do thier jobs better we would all win.

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

This was not HPPD. Direct care nurses save lives.

I find our infection control nurse invaluable because she insists management do what will prevent the spread of infection. That is NOT counting soap, gel, or paper towels.

Hospital Nurse Staffing and Quality of Care

Research in Action, Issue 14

Hospitals with low nurse staffing levels tend to have higher rates of poor patient outcomes such as pneumonia, shock, cardiac arrest, and urinary tract infections, according to research funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and others.

http://www.ahrq.gov/research/nursestaffing/nursestaff.htm

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Specializes in ED/trauma.
Our infection control nurse has actually been known to complile pie charts of paper towel ussage between the various floors.

Takes the number of paper towel packs/by staff and comes up with some sort of formula stating who is washing thier hands more...

OK so now, when I wash my hands instead of grabbing the customary 2 sheets from the dispenser--well I am grabbing 4!! Ya were gonna win next quarter!! lol lol...

Would like to mention the hand washing report came a few days after the "laundry" report---apparently laundry is counting the poundage of the linnens we send down, and our goal is to LOWER that one--they also have that broke down by dept. in other words, we dont really need to change all their sheets every day....

So they want us to use more paper towels, but less linnens....OK my head is spinning..

I'm definitely skewing the numbers then because I regularly use 4 paper towels.

As for the linens, there is a chart about the weight of each item in our linen rooms! It also reminds us that each patient should only have ONE blanket during their stay -- unless it becomes soiled. God forbid they request another or a guest wants one! We are "allowed" to change the linens daily though -- thankfully!

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Specializes in ED, ICU, PACU.

A couple of weeks ago a paper pusher nurse was assigned to audit our handwashing. The funny think is that she was supposed to record the handwashing before and after patient contact; but, she plopped herself down at a desk that was in view of only a single sink. There is no way she could have seen all the handwashing that took place. What a waste of a salary!

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