Question

Your paper for the course project should be a 2-3 page APA paper (not including title page and the reference page) that describes the clinical problem and the following:

Reason for choosing this topic (nosocomial Infection)

The PICOT question (Is hand washing effective against nosocomial Infection?)

Possible integration of the evidenced that you found in clinical practice

Methods to evaluate the effectiveness of implementation

Answer 1

Nosocomial infection is an infection acquired in the hospital that was present or incubating at the time of hospital admission. Each year , an estimated 2 million patients in United States acquire nosocomial infections while hospitalized. As the growth of elderly population is increasing , the above population infected may increase in future. Some of the organisms contributing to nosocomial infections are Clostridium difficile, Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, Vancomycin resistant enterococcus, Candida species, Cornebacterium species, E.coli and many more.

Healthcare providers play an important role in risk reduction by effectively practicing hand hygiene which can break the chain of events in infectious process. Elements of infection are

• A causative organism
• A reservoir of available organisms
• Mode of exit from the reservoir
• Transmission from reservoir to host
• A susceptible host
• A mode of entry to host

When hand hygiene is practiced the causative organism can be eliminated.

PICOT is an acronym used to describe or identify the major elements to formulate a good clinical question.

P(Patient/problem/population) - Hospitalized patients

I( (Intervention/indicator/issue of interest)- Handwashing

C(Comparison)- No handwashing

O(Outcome)- Reducing nosocomial infection

T(Type)-Infection

The most frequent cause of infection outbreaks in health care institutions is transmission by hands of healthcare workers. Handwashing frequently during patient care is significant in reducing the rate of hospital acquired infection . When the rate of hospital acquired infection increases denote the poor compliance of handwashing practice by healthcare workers.

According to CDC, nosocomial infections affect 1 in 25 hospital patients on any day from admission. Patient is at risk of acquiring an infection while getting treated for his problem while in a hospital. Healthcare providers are also at high risk of falling prey to nosocomial infections while they are treating patients. Preventing the spread of harmful micro organisms is totally important in hospitals and other facilities such as dialysis centers ,nursing homes and anywhere patient gets treatment .

Handwashing proves to reduce the amount of harmful flora and bacteria by reducing or washing out the risk of transmission to others .