Handwashing in a Hospital Setting Research Question......…

The hypothesis for this research project is that hand washing in a hospital setting helps prevent nosocomial infections among the patient population.

The purpose of the research is to look at effective ways to promote routine, effective hand washing in the hospital setting, and look at its effect on nosocomial infection rates.

The assumptions are that there will be nosocomial infections occurring in the population of patients studied during the time frame of the study, and that sufficient numbers of them occur to reach statistical relevance. It is also assumed that it will be possible to trace these infections to the doctors or nurses treating the patients to show the connection. Another assumption is that, if nosocomial infections do occur in the patients studied, that they will be traced to doctors and nurses with a lower level of hand hygiene than that practiced on patients who do not contract nosocomial infections.

The limitations of the study will be the time frame of the study; the number of nurses and doctors taking part in the study; and the number of patients involved.

Nosocomial infection - an infection acquired in a hospital

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in early 2003 approv

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Healthcare workers are monitored by both supervisors and peers in the facilityÆs 28 operating rooms at St. JohnÆs Regional Health Center in Springfield, Missouri. The operating room is the ideal place to monitor each other because surgeons and staff often scrub together and can observe each otherÆs technique. Hand hygiene should be addressed in performance reviews (Track, 2003, 120-122). It can be monitored by keeping track of the amount of hand hygiene items used by a department. The Springfield facility often has infection control specialists watch high-risk cases and closely monitor sterile techniques. There is still resistance to using alcohol-based hand rubs because people were told in the past that alcohol had to be used only in addition to scrubbing with soap and water. In a pilot study in England, nurses will wear badges saying: ôClean your hands: ItÆs OK to askö and patients will be given written information reminding them that they should confront staff if they do not wash their hands before approaching them (Wash, 2003, 8). Alcohol gel dispensers will be placed at each patientÆs bedside and staff will carry mini clip-on dispensers. Posters are being placed around the hospitals to reinforce the message. T
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2625
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)