Hand Hygiene Practices

Introduction

Hand hygiene is the most important intervention in the prevention of cross-infection in healthcare setting (Ward, 2003), and great emphasis has been placed on ways to improve hand hygiene compliance by health care workers (HCWs). Despite increasing evidence that patients’ flora and the hospital environment are the primary source of many infections, little effort has been directed toward involving patients in their own hand hygiene. The role of the patient in ensuring those in charge of their care are often described in terms of being an advocate in practicing good hand hygiene. Patient hand hygiene practices have been overlooked in infection prevention within the hospital settings. Once haemodialysis patient is in the hospital

Some patient does wash their hands but not following the proper hand washing technique which is visible on top of the basin/sink. Some patient after washing their hand do collect and prepare their pre and post haemodialysis stuff like dressing pack, syringe, sterile saline, gauze, tape, needles and others and after that they forgot to wash their hands prior to connection to the dialysis machine. Others are very good and adherent to infection control but there are also patients that wash their hands but did not observe the proper technique of hand washing. This quality control improvement aimed to evaluate hand-washing performance of haemodialysis patients and to determine if this could be improved by education and

The main repercussions of poor hand hygiene adherence are MRSA, sepsis and hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. Repercussions from the Lack of Hand Hygiene Patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) that require haemodialysis are at extremely high risk of Staphylococcus Aureus bacteraemia (Safdar, 2005). In the area of haemodialysis (HD) paying attention to hand hygiene and asepsis is especially important since there is an open access to the blood circulatory system. Study findings highlight that 3 of every 10 patients undergoing HD who develop Staphylococcus Aureus bacteraemia will also suffer further complications (Engemann et al., 2005). Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria are easily transmitted from patient to patient on the hands of health care providers and the patients themselves. In addition to the substantial morbidity and mortality associated with Staphylococcus Aureus infection, the economic cost of Staphylococcus Aureus bacteraemia in this population is striking. (Engemann et al., 2005) According to Nissenson (2005) patients with end-stage renal disease and septicaemia caused by Staphylococcus Aureus had costly and lengthy hospitalisations, which frequently were associated with clinically and economically important complications, including hospital