What Is Handwashing?

Great Essays
Introduction
Hand hygiene is the act of cleaning your hands using soap and warm running water, alternatively hand hygiene can be achieved by applying an alcohol based gel. Handwashing is an essential factor in eliminating the spread of infection, as it is key that everyone, be it a patient, visitor or healthcare professional helps to reduce the risk of germs by having an awareness of how easily infections can be transmitted via their hands.
Infections can be passed in many different ways, these include airborne viruses which are spread by coughing and sneezing or infections that are transmitted by personal contact.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (2015) (NMC) state that midwives should ‘promote wellbeing and prevent ill health.’ Handwashing is a key factor in preventing the spread of infection especially in clinical practice. This essay will explore the history of handwashing, why it is important for midwives, and identify how the spread of infection can be prevented. Although I will focus directly on midwives, all health care professionals need to be advocates for hand hygiene.

History of handwashing
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (2016) (CDC) state that simple hand hygiene is the prime way to prevent infection. This
…show more content…
Even though hand hygiene was founded in the 1800’s by Semmelweis still to this day many do not comply to the medical professional GUIDELINES. Considering the vast amount of knowledge and information readily available, health professionals still don’t give hand washing the correct recognition that it deserves. The best way to do this is to educate midwives and ensure handwashing is seen as an essential rule regardless of time constraints and understaffing. Consequently, education still needs to play a big part in relaying the information to all parties as research has proven if hands are not washed in the correct way this can cause illness and even

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    To bring the hospital into compliance by showing evidenced-based improvement and reducing hospital acquired infections requires a more regulated and protocoled hand hygiene routine on al medical floors. Implementing the Hill-Rom…

    • 298 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Unit 362

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As shown in the five moments of hand washing, if a Enrolled Nurse failed to apply the five moments of hand washing…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Childbed Fever Dbq

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages

    As obvious and rational as it might now be, the act of washing hands to prevent infections wasn’t so apparent up until the late 1800s. Back when doctors and medical students would move from dissecting a corpse straight to performing surgery on a patient, what is now known as infectious diseases were attributed to various reasons, and as every human being is in someway distinct from others, it was suggested that the cause of every death was too (Semmelweis seal., n.d.). In the 1840’s, and due to an increasing rate of puerperal fever (also known as childbed fever) amongst new mothers, which is a condition that occurs when a woman experiences an infection related to giving birth (Ataman A., n.d.). A Hungarian doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that mortalities from puerperal fever can be remarkably reduced by the simple act of washing hands.…

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Picot Question

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages

    doi:10.12927/hcq.2010.21968 Pittet, D. (2001). Improving adherence to hand hygiene practice: a multidisciplinary approach. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/414396_5 Srejic, E. (2009, October 19). Hand hygiene: challenges and strategies.…

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Hand Hygiene is considered “the most important measure for preventing the spread of pathogens in health- care settings” because it reduces the spread of pathogenic organisms to patients and health- care workers. Studies in the mid 1800s showed that hospital acquired nosocomial infections and diseases were spread by the hands of healthcare workers. In the 1980s, the first national guidelines for hand washing were published, and many other guidelines followed. The US public health service released a training video in 1961 that demonstrated recommended hand washing techniques for healthcare workers. The video recommended washing hands with soap and water for one to two minutes before and after coming in contact with a patient.…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nsg Safe Nursing

    • 369 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Another element of safe nursing practice is to prevent infection and the most important way to do this is stated in NPSG.07.01.01. Hand washing guided from the Centers for Disease Control, setting and using goals to improve hand washing…

    • 369 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    (2016, April 28). Hand hygiene in healthcare settings. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/handhygiene/index.html Cherry, B., Jacob, S. R., RN, S. K. B., & Barbara Cherry DNSc MBA RN NEA-BC (2013). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management, 6e (6th ed.). Philadelphia, PA, United States: Elsevier Health Sciences.…

    • 1511 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She was the nursing pioneer in cleanliness in preventing the spread of disease and contamination. She did not know about the specific diseases but understood the correlation between cleanliness and the environment and healing of patients. She provided statistical data to show how the death rate decreased after implementing health care reforms that emphasized sanitary conditions (Cherry and Jacob, 2011, p.10). In my practice we use statistical data that is similar in showing the use of hand washing in decreasing the risk of infection and the spread of disease. There are people employed thru the hospital which their only job is to observe staff members using hand hygiene and gather data for use in hospital research.…

    • 1761 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In addition, I learned that it is imperative to wash my hands for at least 15 seconds to reduce the risk of transferring micro-organisms and putting patients at the risk of cross-contamination. Personal hygiene has an…

    • 265 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Socio-Ecological Model: Washing Hands Rose-Bertine Mercier University of Kansas HSES 365: Peer Health Education Handwashing is the first preventive step to reduce medical conditions caused by bacterial and fungi. In many cases, it is deemed as “do-it-yourself vaccine” (CDC, 2016). Many preventable diseases are caused by lack of hygienic practices. By properly “washing hands before and after preparing foods, eating foods, caring for the sick, after using the toilet, blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing, and many more activities could reduce the spread of illnesses” (CDC, 2015). In order to understand the importance of washing hands and the effects it has, the socio-ecological model (SEM) is the method to use.…

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Washing Hands Lab

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Most science majors at Alvernia, whether it be Biology, Bio-Chem or even Nursing, take some form of a microbiology course and can see how dangerous bacteria can be. With that in mind, these students need to be examples to other students and future generations. Aid in stressing the idea that washing hands is the first line of defense when temperature change and sickness is more…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nurses have to reinforce their hand washing technique in the workplace, practice washing their hands with soap and water, and avoid substituting alcohol hand rubs in place of performing hand hygiene. Hospitals need to education their employees about hand hygiene practices and ensure that all the nurses are washing their hands properly after they get done with each patient before moving to the next patient. Hospital also need to evaluate new undergraduate students’ record to ensure that universities are teaching students about hand hygiene practices in clinical, and they understand the importance of handwashing. Hand hygiene promotes patient’s health, decrease illness, slow down death rate, and prevent nurses from spreading diseases to other…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Effective Hand Cleansing

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Q3) What do you understand by “effective hand cleansing”. Describe each method separately: Transmission of microorganisms on the hands of healthcare workers is the most common cause of cross infection, occurring directly from patient contact or indirectly via contact with the environment. Hand hygiene is therefore considered to be one of the most important procedures in the prevention of cross contamination and cross infection. When to perform hand wash:…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    I feel that this is an experience that every student in healthcare should go through. One of the most important observations that I made concerns the various procedures of preventing infections in the operating room. The prevention majorly focuses on the patient, especially when considered the patient has open sounds during the operating process. At times, the practitioners tend to forget the importance of cleaning their hands with soap and water or with alcohol-based cleaners when interacting with the environment (Scott, Earl, Leaper, Massey, Mewburn, Williams, 1999). Notably, the assumption that the practitioner does not need to clean hands simply because they have gloves is misplaced, and it is often overlooked (Weber, Anderson, &Rutala, 2013; Karki& Cheng, 201)).…

    • 2140 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Increasing Hand Hygiene

    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Increasing Hand Hygiene Awareness and Auditing at Elim Village Hand hygiene is basic, simple and the most important initiative to prevent hospital acquired infections. Health care workers’ (HCWs) hands are the most common vector for organism transmission and, historically, HCWs have a low hand hygiene compliance rate of approximately 18% - 50% (British Columbia. Ministry of Health, 2012; Canada. Public Health Agency, 2012).…

    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays