After an OB nurse bragged to me about the MRSA scar in her hand from a needle stick (my sister was her patient as she relayed the story), I have a pet peeve about hand washing. I never, not ONCE in the entire time she entered and exited the room, heard the hand sanitizer go off or saw her wash her hands.
It doesn't mean that I don't miss times when I should -- I know that I have. But this is important, and the statistics back it up. So to have a reminder when other things are taking priority may not be a bad thing.
I use hand sanitizer about 5 times before using the soap and water. Because at that point, my hands are so sticky from using the alcohol based sanitizers.
I work in a hospital and see hand sanitizer everywhere, including a foam type that is specific for MRSA and C-DIFF. I still wash my hands because I know and believe that it is the most effective way to rid of germs. The only thing I worry about with hand sanitizer- alcohol is the main chemical that wards off bacteria, but what about waxy-walled bacteria or endospores? I also am aware that alcohol has a high risk of drying out fast.. I'm sure that infection control has to have done all kinds of testing to be able to use this hand sanitizer method and deem it effective....but, 99% of the time, I just wash with good ol' soap, water, and scrubbing to be safe.
what sanitizer kills CDIFF? im pretty sure you can only get rid of that with soap and water. whenever i have a CDIFF patient in the hospital, all of the sanitizer dispensers in the room are covered with big signs that say please wash hands with soap and water... CDIFF is a spore and needs to be physically scrubbed off your hands and washed down the sink because the agents in sanitizer can not break through the outside of the spore and kill it...
unless they have created some miracle hand sanitizer i have not heard of yet..
They refer to it to mean something like going to bed at a consistent time in the same, comfortable environment. Establish some sleep regularity...that type of thing...just had to have a snazzy name I guess..
what sanitizer kills CDIFF? im pretty sure you can only get rid of that with soap and water. whenever i have a CDIFF patient in the hospital, all of the sanitizer dispensers in the room are covered with big signs that say please wash hands with soap and water... CDIFF is a spore and needs to be physically scrubbed off your hands and washed down the sink because the agents in sanitizer can not break through the outside of the spore and kill it...
unless they have created some miracle hand sanitizer i have not heard of yet..
They do have a few that are used for CDIFF. Our hospital has some available called Aero-something, I can't remember the exact name. But yea, I believed washing was the only thing that could be done to rid of it.
whichone'spink, BSN, RN
1,473 Posts
I use hand sanitizer about 5 times before using the soap and water. Because at that point, my hands are so sticky from using the alcohol based sanitizers.