Task 1 C493
Leadership Name:
May 18, 2020
Identify a problem or issue that aligns with the organizational priorities you
seek to solve. Explain the problem or issue, including why it is applicable to the area of
practice you chose and the healthcare environment
When seeking information for an organizational problem to work to fix I found that a major concern of the hospital is infection control. Preventing the start of infections in the hospital is a multi-disciplinary approach. Infections effect “ more than
1.7 million Americans are diagnosed with a hospital-acquired healthcare-associated infection (HAI), with almost 100,000 dying from their infection”( Four Facts about Infection and Its Prevention 2018) In my hospital it is estimated to cause an increase cost of over $30,000 an admission and add over 7 days to a patients length of stay. Infections are costly, life altering and deadly so because of this infection prevention is key. I work in a very busy 16 bed critical care unit. We take care of the sickest of the sick and often patients come in with one problem and leave with a hospital acquired infection. When assessing what areas my unit can improve our infection prevention numbers I found that hand hygiene was a serious area that we were lacking on. According to the CDC, about 1 in 25 patients acquires a health care-associated infection (HAI) due to poor hand hygiene during their hospital care, resulting in up to 722,000
infections a year. Of these, 75,000 patients die of their infections (Hand Hygiene in Healthcare
Settings, 2018) Healthcare workers are the front line to caring and touching patients. Without adequate hand hygiene it allows antibiotic resistant bacteria to spread. In one study WHO found that” on average, 61% of healthcare workers—in some facilities up to 90%—do not adhere to best
handwashing practices, even when supplies are available.” (The Global Handwashing Partnership 2017) Also one fact I found is it “estimates of the cost of hospital-acquired infections
range from $28 billion to as high as $45 billion per year” (Healthcare-Associated Infections 2019)
Discuss your investigation of the problem or issue. Provide evidence to substantiate the problem or issue (e.g., organizational assessment, national source documents, evidence from a stakeholder).
In my facility we use what we call “secret shoppers” to monitor hand hygiene compliance. These are chosen representatives of a specific unit that observes the actions taken by those in the unit. In this assessment this includes all personnel such as nurses, MD, Respirator, lab techs radiology and so on that enter the room or have patient contact. The secret shopper watches someone go into the room and they are assessed based on needed actions “Did they foam or wash before going in”? Did they foam or wash between surface touches?” Did they foam or wash coming out?”. The secret shopper writes down job title on the form and mark Yes or No based on if they followed proper hand hygiene. The secret shoppers make minim 50 observations in 1 month and turns them into infection prevention. The previous 3 months of hand hygiene compliance percent prior to my project are as follows below.
Critical Care Hand Hygiene
Month Compliance percent
January 201970%
December 201858%
November 201862%
Leadership Name:
May 18, 2020
Identify a problem or issue that aligns with the organizational priorities you
seek to solve. Explain the problem or issue, including why it is applicable to the area of
practice you chose and the healthcare environment
When seeking information for an organizational problem to work to fix I found that a major concern of the hospital is infection control. Preventing the start of infections in the hospital is a multi-disciplinary approach. Infections effect “ more than
1.7 million Americans are diagnosed with a hospital-acquired healthcare-associated infection (HAI), with almost 100,000 dying from their infection”( Four Facts about Infection and Its Prevention 2018) In my hospital it is estimated to cause an increase cost of over $30,000 an admission and add over 7 days to a patients length of stay. Infections are costly, life altering and deadly so because of this infection prevention is key. I work in a very busy 16 bed critical care unit. We take care of the sickest of the sick and often patients come in with one problem and leave with a hospital acquired infection. When assessing what areas my unit can improve our infection prevention numbers I found that hand hygiene was a serious area that we were lacking on. According to the CDC, about 1 in 25 patients acquires a health care-associated infection (HAI) due to poor hand hygiene during their hospital care, resulting in up to 722,000
infections a year. Of these, 75,000 patients die of their infections (Hand Hygiene in Healthcare
Settings, 2018) Healthcare workers are the front line to caring and touching patients. Without adequate hand hygiene it allows antibiotic resistant bacteria to spread. In one study WHO found that” on average, 61% of healthcare workers—in some facilities up to 90%—do not adhere to best
handwashing practices, even when supplies are available.” (The Global Handwashing Partnership 2017) Also one fact I found is it “estimates of the cost of hospital-acquired infections
range from $28 billion to as high as $45 billion per year” (Healthcare-Associated Infections 2019)
Discuss your investigation of the problem or issue. Provide evidence to substantiate the problem or issue (e.g., organizational assessment, national source documents, evidence from a stakeholder).
In my facility we use what we call “secret shoppers” to monitor hand hygiene compliance. These are chosen representatives of a specific unit that observes the actions taken by those in the unit. In this assessment this includes all personnel such as nurses, MD, Respirator, lab techs radiology and so on that enter the room or have patient contact. The secret shopper watches someone go into the room and they are assessed based on needed actions “Did they foam or wash before going in”? Did they foam or wash between surface touches?” Did they foam or wash coming out?”. The secret shopper writes down job title on the form and mark Yes or No based on if they followed proper hand hygiene. The secret shoppers make minim 50 observations in 1 month and turns them into infection prevention. The previous 3 months of hand hygiene compliance percent prior to my project are as follows below.
Critical Care Hand Hygiene
Month Compliance percent
January 201970%
December 201858%
November 201862%
