Hand Hygiene Basics
This is performed by staff before and after patient contact, aseptic procedures, and contact with the environment, soiled items or blood or body fluids.
What is hand hygiene?
CDC says, "______ ______ save lives"
What are "clean hands?"
What is False - gloves are never to be used in lieu of handwashing.
This is the minimum percentage of alcohol content that hand sanitizers should have to be effective.
What is 60%?
This infection, often abbreviated as MRSA, can be spread by unclean hands and is resistant to many antibiotics.
What is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus?
These two cleaning products are used for hand hygiene.
What are soap & water and alcohol based hand sanitizer?
This is the amount of time you should spend washing your hands.
What is 20-30 seconds?
Nurse Nightingale used hand sanitizer after removing her gloves. After rubbing her hands together for 15 seconds, she waved her hands back and forth to dry them faster.
The error - she should have let her hands dry on their own.
This element of soap helps break down and remove oils that germs cling to.
What is surfactant?
Hand washing can help prevent this lung infection, which can be especially dangerous for hospitalized patients.
What is pneumonia?
These must be 1/4-inch in length, natural and with no artificial or gel applications.
What are fingernails?
You should always wash your hands after removing this piece of PPE.
What are gloves?
Mya wears a pair of gloves to perform multiple tasks on the same patient so that she does not have to wash her hands in between.
The error - gloves should be changed & hand hygiene performed in between tasks even for the same patient.
Hand washing physically removes germs, while this type of product kills germs on contact.
What is hand sanitizer?
This severe gastrointestinal infection can be controlled by proper hand hygiene.
What is C. diff?
This stops the spread of harmful bacteria and prevents cross-contamination.
What is hand washing?
This is the amount of time you should rub your hands together when using alcohol based hand sanitizer.
What is 15 seconds (or until dry)?
Chris is in between patients and goes to wash his hands, but the soap and alcohol dispenser are empty. It's not his job to notify someone about things like that, so he donned some gloves and went about his business.
The error - Chris should have reported the empty dispensers because infection prevention is everyone's job. He also should have gone to a different area with soap and/or sanitizer and washed his hands.
Hand washing with soap and water physically removes germs by way of what?
What is friction?
Good hand hygiene can help prevent the initial infection that might lead to this life-threatening response to infection.
What is sepsis?
This is the best cleansing option when your hands are visibly soiled.
What are soap and water?
This is the mechanism by which alcohol based hand sanitizers kill germs.
What is destroying cell membranes?
Misty comes back to work as a CNA from vacation with a set of acrylic nails - complete with rhinestones! So cute!
The error - acrylic nails trap and spread bacteria underneath them despite hand hygiene compliance.
This water temperature is ideal for effective handwashing.
What is warm/hot water?
Over-reliance on gloves without hand washing can contribute to the spread of this highly contagious stomach virus.
What is norovirus?