Re-Educating Health Care Providers on Hand Hygiene Practice Free Essay Example, 6250 words

Thorough and proper hand hygiene is one of the most significant practices, which helps in eliminating cross-contamination and reducing incidences of hospital-acquired infections (HAI) (Kim & Kollak, 2006). Specifically, healthcare related infections have been on the increase in the recent years, prompting serious investigations as to whether healthcare facilities were taking hand hygiene seriously. Global statistics indicate that the rate of hospital-acquired infections revolves around 25 percent, while also increasing costs involved in treating and managing HAIs in healthcare facilities (Kim & Kollak, 2006). However, substantive epidemiologic evidence supports the fact that hand hygiene helps to reduce the instances of HAIs in hospitals (Kim & Kollak, 2006). The World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the Joint Commission have acknowledged the significance of hand hygiene globally (Ivers, et al. 2012). These organizations recommend hand hygiene practices as one way of reducing or eliminating Healthcare-acquired infections in hospitals. In the hospital scenario, the WHO recommends five main points when healthcare workers ought to observe hand hygiene (Parker, & Smith 2010). These are before having contact with patients, before any antiseptic tasks, after exposure to bodily fluid, after contact with a patient, and after coming in contact with the patient’s surroundings. We will write a custom essay sample on Re-Educating Health Care Providers on Hand Hygiene Practice or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now Healthcare workers are expected to comply with these guidelines in order to minimize healthcare-acquired infections. However, compliance with hand hygiene has always been low historically with the average compliance rate at only 39 percent (Parker, & Smith 2010). This situation has made it difficult to manage healthcare-acquired infections as well as alleviate the impact of health campaigns to minimize cross-contamination. Research has shown that failure to adhere with hand hygiene practices not only makes healthcare costly, but also undermines the efficacy of delivering healthcare services (Kim & Kollak, 2006). Healthcare costs reportedly shoot up to 16 billion if hand hygiene is not complied with, and most of the costs involved in treating patients who stay longer in the hospital after contracting (Kim & Kollak, 2006). HAIs Compliance is vital for measuring the rates of success of the various healthcare interventions that patients receive. Re-education is a multimodal intervention aimed at inducing and improving compliance with hand hygiene practices. This intervention is based on theoretical frameworks of behavioral change at the individual, interpersonal and organizational level.