Hospital-acquired infections and hand washing compliance in clinical settings

¶ … Washing in Nursing and Medicine

The importance of antisepsis in medicine has been known for more than 150 years since physician Joseph Lister first suggested the germ theory of bacterial infection. Since then, antiseptic protocol has been a fundamental aspect of every facet of modern medical training. However, according to recent empirical evidence pertaining to the rate of hospital-acquired nosocomial infections among hospitalized patients, antiseptic protocol is being routinely ignored in many respects within the clinical environment.

Understanding the Problem

According to Oncology care setting design and planning Part II: Designing healthcare settings to prevent fungal infections and improve hand washing (Sheridan-Leos, 2008), hospital-acquired nosocomial infections affect approximately 1.7 million hospitalized patients in the U.S., resulting in almost 100,000 preventable deaths from complications unrelated to the original cause for hospitalization.

This problem accounts for a tremendous amount of unnecessary medical expenses, prompting the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to suspend further funding of various types of hospital-acquired infections (such as vascular catheter-associated infection and catheter-associated urinary tract infections), since October 1, 2008. That measure is intended specifically to motivate medical institutions to improve their antiseptic protocol compliance rates. In that regard, treating institutions are no longer eligible for federal subsidization for the treatment of such infections unless the patient presented with them initially. Furthermore, treating institutions may not bill patients for the additional cost of treating those types of infections either.

Solution

The solution is rather obviously quite simple. Among the most important aspects of reducing hospital-acquired nosocomial hospital infections is increasing the rates of hand washing among hospital personnel. Naturally, the more direct patient contact individual personnel have, the more important adherence to strict hand-washing policy is. Since physicians and nurses routinely care for many patients during a typical shift, it is crucial for them to become the most compliant rather than the least compliant in this regard. Ultimately, greater governmental regulation may be required to ensure appropriate compliance with antiseptic protocol, particularly as pertains to such easily-accomplished precautions as ordinary hand washing.