Hand Hygiene Project - Essay Example

"Hand Hygiene Project" is a great example of a paper on the health system.
The hand hygiene project undertaken has various implications and significance. Several strategies will be employed to ensure that hand hygiene is not only initiated but also complied with and strongly adhered to. Hand hygiene practices will be incorporated into the policy requirements before any procedure is done to the patient or on anything to prevent instances of cross infections. If the policies are neglected, then the healthcare providers will be breeching the policies and appropriate measures will be undertaken by the healthcare provider (Bolon, 2011).

Organizations and healthcare facilities will need to change their cultures to enhance the adoption of handwashing strategies into their systems. Good organizational culture plays a pivotal role in enhancing and supporting effective communication to enhance policy implementation and adoption. The organizations need to have strong leadership teams to ensure that the stipulated policies and strategies are put in place (Abraham, 2012).

Education strategies and channels are very essential to ensure that awareness and enlightenment are created for the health workers as well as the patients. There is a need to educate patients on the importance of hand hygiene as an effort of enhancing their safety. Patients should be aware of the stipulated policies so that they are aware of their rights. In case of violation of their rights, then appropriate measures will be taken to the parties involved with regards to the hand hygiene practices (Abraham, 2012).

Among the implications from the project will be monitoring of the compliance of the hand hygiene practices by the care workers. This will entail the use of validated methodologies for training observers who will directly monitor hand hygiene utilization as well as measuring the hand hygiene product consumption using the electronic hand hygiene compliance monitoring systems i.e. video monitoring (Jumaa, 2005). This is important to help in determining the rate of adoption of the health care practices in an effort of reducing the associated risks and diseases that result due to poor hand hygiene practices.

Associated project outcomes involve the reduction of major common hospital-acquired infections in-hospital care that is a major threat to the safety of the patients. Proper handwashing is the simplest way of reducing transmission of micro-organism leading to infections that will result in increased cost, stay in hospital as well as reduction of the associated mortality rates. As a result, the cost of treatment and hospital stay will be reduced that will be beneficial to the patient as well as the health care organizations. Hand hygiene practices are an essential measure in helping the reduction of infections that are acquired in the hospital (Tran, 2009). However, compliance with the practices and recommendations is very insufficient. The project will help increase the compliance rate with hand hygiene recommendations and practice. This will be achieved through education and monitoring of hand hygiene utilization.

Ethical implications of the project will involve ensuring that the healthcare workers ‘respect’ patients right during their care by adhering to hand hygiene recommendations and practices. Practitioners need to act for the benefit of the patients ‘non-maleficence’ and do no harm to the patients by practicing ‘beneficence’ ethical consideration. In case of violation of the patient’s rights then legal implications need to be undertaken to the involved healthcare provider (Yoshikawa, 2009). However, the integration of hand hygiene will come with its own challenges such as resistance but is very essential in the reduction of hospital-acquired infections.