Hand Hygiene and Wound Management in Aged Care Facility (Essay Sample)

Healthcare Reflective Essay: Hand Hygiene and Wound Management in Aged Care Facility
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Healthcare Reflective Essay: Hand Hygiene and Wound Management in Aged Care Facility
In delivering health care, one aspect of practice which should be considered is hygiene. There are set standards which determine the quality of health care when it comes to hygiene and specific recommendations as well aimed at reducing the transmissions of pathogenic organisms to patients and improving health practices. This paper looks at hygiene in healthcare by providing a description of healthcare hygiene, reflects on the clinical factors of hand hygiene in health care, my feelings and thoughts which I experienced, as well as the values and beliefs which underpinned my experience. The paper also analyzes the sense which can be made out of the situation and what strategies and action plans which I would use to improve hygiene in clinical setting.
Description
The aspect of practice which I observed in clinical situation is hygiene. I chose this aspect because hygiene is one of the factors which plays a significant role in ether reducing the risk of spreading infections among patients or, when not observed, can also promote the spread of infections. Based on what I have learned and my past knowledge about hygiene in health care, some practices which I observed from the nurses differed from what I expected, while others just matched my expectations. From my understanding, hand hygiene is one of the good hygiene practices. Clean hands count as an effective way of preventing infections, spreading germs including the ones which are difficult to treat or resistant to the antibiotics (Jethwa, 2015). I expected all the nurses to observe high levels of hand hygiene. However, I noticed that some nurses did not adhere to recommended hand hygiene practices, for instance, they did not wear gloves during the aseptic non touch wound care technique. What matched my expectation, however, was how the nurses were dressing the wounds, for instance, when it came to leaking wounds, they used silver containing hydrofiber-aquacel which balances moisture for the recovery of the wound.
Clinical factors which Influence the Delivery of Dare
From my observation, I feel that the clinical environment contributed significantly on influencing the standards of hygiene practiced by the nurses. There was a shortage of antiseptics, which is one of the materials used in promoting hand hygiene. I think that some of the resources should be a priority in healthcare especially when it comes to matters to do with hygiene.
Feelings, Emotions, Thoughts which I experienced
When observing these practices, at some point, I was worried for the patients, especially when the nurse did not consider hand hygiene. My thoughts were on how this aspect could be changed and improved for better delivery in health care. I felt that I could have done something like communicating with the nurse about it which I, however, failed to do.
Values/ Beliefs
I believe that as a nurse, one of the good practices which should be given priority is high standards of hygiene. The World Health Organization (WHO) and other institutions have provided guidelines, especially to the healthcare workers, health authorities as well as hospital administrators with a thorough review of the hand hygiene aspect (Hua, 2015). I believe that health institutions should set polices in relation to these guidelines and ensure that they are adhered to. As a nurse, I value hygiene and the health and safety of patients.
Analysis
Prevention of infection is very important and from this situation, I believe that there is much which can be done in regard to healthcare hygiene. Many healthcare workers describe hand hygiene as one single and most important tool used in the prevention of germs and infections among patients (Hayden, 2016). There are few definitive data, according to WHO, on healthcare activities which can transmit germs to the hands of healthcare works. However, there has been a lot of literature which has identified numerous possibilities of germ transmission to the hands (Jenner et al 2006). In most cases, germs and bacterial are found in the hands of health care workers after performing activities such as nursing wounds, respiratory track care among other related activities. However, bacteria can also be found after clean contact activities such as taking pulse of the patient or even temperature or blood pressure. Direct patient contact has been confirmed as one of the ways in which health care workers’ hands can be contaminated; however, there are also other ways which the hands of healthcare workers can be contaminated among them being touching contaminated surfaces, and touching a contaminated chart at the nurse station (Boyce, 2002).
Action Plan/Strategies
It is important to consider hand hygiene not only before getting in contact with a patient, but also after getting in contact with the patient. I think that in a clinical setting, it is also important to keep the healthcare environment clean because this can also help in reducing the germs and bacteria in the surfaces. Despite the fact that many health care facilities such as hospitals have hygiene policies which are used in guiding nurses and other healthcare