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Quality and Prevention Update

Hand Hygiene Protocol
– Janet Brooks, RN

In our communities, we are seeing influenza surging and multi-drug resistant organisms emerging, so it is time to be urging everyone to break the Chain of Infection and wash your hands. Even in this quickly advancing world of medical technologies, the best and easiest way to protect our patients and ourselves is simply to clean our hands. Here at West Valley, we have started a new emphasis on hand hygiene using the tag line “Gel In, Gel Out.” When you enter a patient care area and when you leave a patient care area, we are asking everyone to use the hand sanitizer we have available. We are also trying to go the extra safety step and have posted a sign at our entrance asking everyone — staff and visitors — to clean their hands on entrance to the hospital. We are committed to being a “Clean Hands Facility.”

The Joint Commission has recognized this basic need for patient safety and has issued an update on their interpretation of National Patient Safety Goal No. 7 regarding hand hygiene. Their statement is: “Any observation by surveyors of individual failure to perform hand hygiene in the process of direct patient care will be cited as a deficiency.” In explanation of this stricter level of compliance, they state, “there has been sufficient time for all organizations to train personnel who engage in direct patient care.” There can be various causes of a hospital-acquired infection, yet the No. 1 way is still being carried on the hands of healthcare workers. Now is the time to do the right thing – Gel In and Gel Out.


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