Hygienic working revolves around fixed habits that everyone in the team carries out in the same way. Hand hygiene at the right moments is the most important part of it.
Everyone in care knows that hygienic working is important. Yet in practice I see uncertainty: when exactly to disinfect your hands, how to deal with gloves, what to do with jewellery or materials? That uncertainty is understandable, but it can be resolved. In this article you will read how to strengthen hygienic working on the ward.
Hygiene agreements are often explained at the start of a job and then never discussed again. Staff bring habits from previous employers, and shortcuts arise when things get busy. As a result, not everyone works in the same way. That is not a matter of indifference, but of missing repetition and coordination.
The environment also plays a part. If the disinfectant is not in a logical place, or materials are hard to find, hygienic working is made unnecessarily difficult. A walk round the ward asking staff what gets in their way often quickly yields practical improvements.
Hand hygiene is the most important measure for limiting the transmission of micro-organisms. A well-known tool is the five moments of hand hygiene. They offer guidance on when to clean or disinfect your hands. You will find more practical explanation under hand hygiene on the floor. In short, it comes down to:
Hygienic working only becomes second nature when it can be discussed openly. It should be normal to remind each other of an agreement without it feeling like criticism. Short moments during the handover or a fixed item at the team meeting help with this. I like to work with examples from daily care myself, so that it does not stay abstract.
Hygienic working is connected with other topics in daily care, such as wound care and reporting and fall prevention. Go through the agreements together now and then, and look mainly at what happens in practice, not just at what is in a protocol.
On an assignment around hygiene, I first observe on the ward. Then I discuss with the team what is going well and where the differences lie. Together we make agreements that fit the daily work. That is how safe, respectful and high-quality care comes about. Read more under hygienic working.
I help with this through hygienic working and consistent working agreements. Want to know what that means for your organisation? Schedule an introduction.
Each week, choose one hygiene agreement to mention briefly during the handover. Small repetitions work better than one big training session.
It is a well-known classification of the moments when hand hygiene is needed: before contact with the client, before a clean procedure, after contact with body fluids, after contact with the client and after contact with the client's immediate surroundings.
No. Gloves are an addition, not a replacement. Hand hygiene is also needed before and after wearing gloves. Follow your organisation's guidelines on this.
Yes. I observe on the floor, discuss the agreements with the team and help to record them in a short, workable way.
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