Question

the following questions on your case study.

Madison Community Hospital Addresses Infection Prevention

By Michael Moran

The Quality Issue

Hospitals across the country have seen an increase in Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), a bacterial infection that is highly resistant to some antibiotics. Patients who contract this infection can develop serious complications, sometimes leading to death. Area hospitals with MRSA outbreaks have been featured in recent media programs, resulting in a loss of public confidence and declining admissions. As the director of an inpatient unit at Madison Community Hospital (MCH), you understand the potential for an increase of MRSA at your hospital. Your infectious disease physicians are concerned about the potential for an outbreak at your hospital. Infection prevention studies have reported that only 40% of health care workers sanitize their hands before treating patients. Hand washing and other hand-sanitizing methods have been proven to reduce the transmission of dangerous infections from one patient to another.

Preliminary Actions at MCH

The MCH products committee has evaluated several hand-sanitizing products and selected an alcohol-based product that effectively eliminates the majority of bacterial microorganisms that can be transmitted by contact. The hand hygiene policy at MCH requires staff members, physicians, and volunteers to apply the hand sanitizer before entering and after leaving a patient’s room. The Infection Prevention staff estimates an average of 15–20 individuals enter a patient’s room each day.

You have been appointed to serve on a task force charged with improving hand hygiene compliance. The Infection Prevention personnel have gathered preliminary data from various inpatient nursing units (see Table 18-1). Staff on these units were observed in order to assess whether they sanitized their hands prior to entering and upon leaving a patient’s room. The Infection Prevention staff observing the inpatient unit personnel are routinely seen on these units as part of their surveillance activities. Staff members were not aware their hand hygiene practices were being observed. At first glance, the data indicates hand hygiene is not practiced, as required by the policy, in more than half the observations.

MCH has adopted the FOCUS-PDCA improvement model and utilizes various tools for collecting data and analyzing processes. The hand hygiene task force will be applying these methods to address the hand hygiene concern.

Answer the questions below.

What are some of the issues associated with caregivers sanitizing their hands? Why do you suppose only 40 percent of caregivers sanitize their hands? What other department personnel, besides nursing, may need to enter a patient’s room during his/her stay?

Who should be on this task force to represent which hospital functions and why? To whom should the task force report its results and why?

How would the problem look different if it turned out only a handful of personnel were noncompliant? How would this affect the improvement process?

Answer 1

1. Care giver forgets to sanitize their hands. In busy schedules the may be forgets. It is essential to keep the signage board of handwashing in hospitals

All health care personnel before touching the patient wash the hands thoroughly

Infection control team is to ensure these functions and determine all are following or not

It is affecting the improvement process. The infections are present everywhere every health care team need to be prevent nosocomial infections