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Washing Hands

Satisfactory Essays

Kristie Tran
Becca Gray
Writing 39C
29 June 2014
Spread of HAIs: Medical Staff Non-Compliance
In the beginning of the chapter "On Washing Hands", Dr. Gawande stated that the spread of hospital-acquired infections could be stopped if the medical staffs wash their hands frequently between each patient visits. The infections are carried through the doctors and staff members and then transferred to the next patients by "having shaken hands with a sniffling patient…most of [the staff] do little more than wipe [their] hands on [their] white coats and move on--to see the next patient" (Gawande 15). The various contagions that the staff encounter is known to cause deadly infections and about ninety thousand patients die from these …show more content…

Gawande mentions in the beginning of the book about the incident where his patient’s surgery time had to be delay since operating rooms were full and “there are only enough nurses available to cover seventeen of forty-two operating rooms” (Gawande 6). In that case, if each nurse took an extra minute after each patient they encounter to wash their hands, then there will about a twenty minute delay for each nurse since each nurse is responsible for checking in on twenty patients in an hour during their rounds. Since washing hands took too long for the fast-paced hospital setting, hospitals began to replace hand soap with easy to-go hand gel. The fifteen seconds hand rub-over gel saved time and increased the medical staff participation in hand washing to 70 percent, but hospital infection rate was barely affected by the change since there were still a 30 percent of non-hand-washers who are still transmitting the infections.
The nurses acknowledge the principle of washing hands but are having a hard time washing their hands because of they are having a difficult time applying the hand wash routine in their work force. Gawande demonstrates the medical staff’s inability to compliant the hand wash routine with his personal viewpoints and experiences. Throughout the “On Washing Hands” chapter, Gawande explained the importance of washing hands, the effect of not washing hands, and how to properly wash hands, demonstrating that he understands the concept of hand washing in

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