They can not be ignored in hospital hand hygiene
From the responsibility of patient care, environmental cleaning, and delivery of goods. Whether it is daily cleaning, shipping specimens, medical waste disposal, etc., there may be direct or indirect exposure to pollutants to varying degrees. Although Procter & Gamble also has hand hygiene training to help them reduce pollution, their sense of hospitality is often weak, and hand hygiene compliance is poor. How to protect these high-risk groups and reduce the spread of diseases caused by the hands of logistics workers? This not only requires the efforts of the cleaning company, but also the medical staff of the hospital need to pay attention to them, and educate and guide them in a way that suits them, help them to avoid the infection in the hospital, and block the cross caused by the hands of the logistics workers. Infection, build another line of defense against infection in the hospital.
When I visited the hospital and learned about the management of the hospital in different departments, some scenes made me have to worry about the risk of hospitality caused by the logistics workers, such as collecting medical waste by hand, and not washing the hands in time.
Although the hospital attaches great importance to hand hygiene propaganda, it often focuses on the medical staff who frequently contact patients. The hand hygiene of logistic workers is often ignored or insufficient attention. Logistic workers’ hand hygiene compliance is low, and it becomes a hidden way for hospital pathogens to spread, which will bring huge challenges to the prevention and control of nosocomial infections.
Misunderstanding
Reasons for low compliance of logistics workers’ hand hygiene:
First, the training is not in place.
The logistics and cleaning work of many hospitals is often outsourced to the cleaning company. The management of the cleaning company is mixed, and some lack of standardized training for workers. At the same time, the training method is also crucial, the method is not appropriate, the training can only be in the form, and the effect can be imagined.
Second, awareness is not in place.
Due to the education background and living habits of the workers themselves, the understanding of the harmfulness of nosocomial infections is relatively weak. If there is no standardized training and guidance to make them aware of the importance of hand hygiene, they often ignore the hand washing process because of their busy work.
Third, the supervision is not in place.
Effective supervision is one of the measures to maintain good behavior. Supervision consists of two levels, one is the level of the cleaning company, and the other is the department level. Both need to be under the dual control to provide effective supervision. In fact, medical work is busy, medical staff have no time to take care of it, and departmental supervision is easily missing. Even if the company is supervised, it is often a bit of water.
Fourth, the facilities are not in place.
Lack of hand washing facilities The number of hand washing facilities is too small or the position is not reasonable. The hand sanitizer is not replenished after use; the hand sanitizer is less placed and inconvenient to use, which will affect the compliance of the logistics workers.
Confuse
How to improve the hand hygiene compliance of workers?
1. Provide accessible hand hygiene facilities.
The hospital needs to have the necessary hand hygiene facilities in the worker’s work area, including sinks, hand sanitizers, etc.
Second, pre-job training and continuing education.
The logistics of hospital logistics workers are relatively large. Every logistics worker must receive pre-job training before going to work, including hand hygiene. The hospital can carry out hand hygiene continuing education and training in combination with the hand hygiene of workers.
Third, the training content must be determined.
1. “5 moments” for hand hygiene of logistics workers: (1) before contact with patients; (2) after contact with pollutants such as body fluids; (3) after contact with the surrounding environment and articles of patients; (4) after contact with patients; (5) Before the release of the diet.
2. Six washing methods: According to the relevant research, according to the standard “6-step washing method”, the bacterial contamination rate of hand washing decreased from 57.3% before washing to 12.2% after washing, while the bacterial contamination rate after hand washing by general hand washing method. From 54.7% before hand washing to 38.0% after hand washing, it can be seen that proper hand washing can reduce hand bacteria to reduce the risk of nosocomial infection.
3. Hand sanitizer and running water to wash your hands. When the hands have visible blood or other body fluids, use soap (soap) and running water to wash your hands. When there is no visible contamination on the hands, use hands-drying disinfectant to disinfect hands instead of washing hands.
4. Training methods are skillful. According to the low level of the overall cultural level of logistics workers, theoretical knowledge or evidence-based basis cannot be simply mentioned, but they should be guided in a way that they can accept. Demonstrate the presentation or play the video through an intuitive class. Improve the perceptual knowledge of workers. Avoid learning directly by workers looking at pictures or text, which can lead to operational errors. The use of video or PPT to tell workers that hand hygiene is the carrier of bacterial transmission, visual impact is better than language training.
Caring for a sense of identity Telling workers in a simple language is good for hand hygiene to protect the health of them and their families. When they realize that they are cared, the degree of cooperation will also improve. Awakening empathy Washing hands takes time, how to let workers wash their hands consciously in busy work, and consciously awaken the importance of hand hygiene. You can say, “Workers, everyone is very busy at work, sometimes they forget to wash their hands, but if your loved one is in the hospital, would you be more reassured if you want to take care of his workers?”
5. The supervision method should be correct. Avoid interference with the Hawthorne effect in hand hygiene compliance observations. We have to tell Procter & Gamble to avoid “strictly obeying” when checking the hand hygiene compliance of logistics workers, and avoid observing for too long. Medical staff can incorporate surveillance observations into their daily work. This can not only observe the real situation, but also play the role of supervision.
According to WHO reports, hundreds of millions of patients worldwide are affected by nosocomial infections every year. It not only causes physical and psychological pain, but even death, and also causes huge economic losses. More than half of these infections can be prevented by properly cleaning your hands at critical times. Logistic workers are high-risk groups of nosocomial infections in hospitals and a weak link in hand hygiene management. As a hospital administrator, especially a hospitality worker, we must not lose sight of the importance of the hand hygiene of logistics workers in the sense of hospitality. Every medical staff is duty-bound to improve hand hygiene compliance. While setting a good example, we use our care to supervise logistics workers. Letting hand hygiene no longer be an “I want to do” instruction, but a habit of “I want to do it.”