Swabs in Hand, Hospital Cuts Deadly Infections

Ms. Daly said that just before her mother's discharge from a Manhattan hospital, she watched a doctor remove her dressings with bare, unwashed hands

What did the researchers find?


Doctors cleansed their hands 57% of the times that they should have.
They cleansed hands most often when a hand-rub solution was easily available. They did not wash hands as often when they had busy workloads with many patient interactions and when they performed activities with high risks for spreading infections. These activities required cleansing hands immediately before examining patients or between examining different body sites on the same patient. Medical students and internists (internal medicine doctors) washed hands most often, whereas anesthesiologists, critical care physicians, and surgeons washed hands least often. Doctors who valued hand hygiene and considered themselves role models washed hands often.

...I'm wondering if the MD didn't have on disposable gloves...

miller wrote :

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...I'm wondering if the MD didn't have on disposable gloves...

so there is no need to scrub BEFORE putting the gloves on ?

Everyone who makes hospital IVs wears sterile gloves and works in a sterile hood. No one washes his/her hands before putting the gloves on. If you're going to wash your hands with isopropyl alcohol, why put on gloves to make an IV?

miller wrote :

Quote:

Everyone who makes hospital IVs wears sterile gloves and works in a sterile hood. No one washes his/her hands before putting the gloves on. If you're going to wash your hands with isopropyl alcohol, why put on gloves to make an IV?

just want to make sure i understand you :
"NO handwashing necessary BEFORE putting sterile gloves on" ?
hbg

Handwashing Indications

In the absence of a true emergency, personnel should always wash their hands:

1) Before performing invasive procedures (Category I).

2) Before taking care of particularly susceptible patients, such as those whoare severely immunocompromised and newborns (Category I).

3) Before and after touching wounds, whether surgical, traumatic, orassociated with an invasive device (Category I).

4) After situations during which microbial contamination of hands is likely tooccur, especially those involving contact with mucous membranes, blood or body fluids, andsecretions or excretions (Category I).

5) After touching inanimate sources that are likely to be contaminated withvirulent or epidemiologically important microorganisms; these sources includeurine-measuring devices or secretion collecting apparatuses (Category I).

6) After taking care of an infected patient or one who is likely to be colonizedwith microorganisms of special clinical or epidemiologic significance, for examplemultiple-resistant bacteria (Category I).

7) Between contacts with different patients in high-risk units (Category I).

What has that got to do with IV preparation?

miller wrote :

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What has that got to do with IV preparation?

surely you are not suggesting that when preparing an IV , as long as one wears gloves , clean hands are not required ?
hbg