Hand hygiene and hospital acquired infections.

Running Head: Hand hygiene and hospital acquired infections 1
Hand hygiene and hospital Acquired infections
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Hand hygiene and hospital acquired infections
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Hand hygiene and hospital-acquired infections
The research problem identified is whether the health practitioners’ hand hygiene lead to hospital
acquired infections.
Background
This study seeks to criticize two research articles by Mathew Koff, (2014) and Sarit Sharma,
(2018) on hand hygiene and hospital-acquired infections. These two articles analyze that
hospital-acquired infections are associated with poor hand hygiene. According to Sarit (2018),
the hands of a health care worker play an important in the transmission of pathogens in any
health care settings. Sarit’s study aims to determine all the infections from hospitals that are
transmitted only by the health practitioner. Koff (2014) argues that the anesthesia provider hand
hygiene’s compliance determines the transmission of infections during surgeries. This study aims
to determine the importance of hand hygiene in determining the spread of hospital-acquired
infections.
These articles are very significant because both analyze various ways of getting hospital-
acquired infections and, at the same time, provide insight on the ways of practice in the health set
up that shall enable various parties to play their roles effectively. The nurses shall be able to
know various ways of handling patients in the outpatient and inpatient departments, as well as
during surgery. They shall be able to carry out the proposed ways of enhancing proper hand
hygiene practices in these two research articles and why they need to comply with such practices.
Supporting the chosen topic by the chosen two articles
The PICOT question for this paper is whether hand hygiene contributes to Hospital Acquired
Infections in hospital setups. Hospital settings are made up of health practitioners, the staff,

Hand hygiene and hospital acquired infections
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visitors, and patients. There are various kinds of infections in hospitals that, in one way or the
other affect everybody. Controlling and preventing such infections is of great importance for the
safety and wellbeing of every party (Bearman, Munoz-Price, Morgan, & Murthy, 2017). Quality
risk management, health, and clinical governance can all lead to controlled hospital infections
(Kwok, 2013). In both studies, cross-sectional surveys are done amongst the health care nurses,
members of staff, and the patients. A survey of 50 nurses was done during the operative sessions
and after the postoperative sessions on how they did hand hygiene, Koff, 2014). According to
Sarit (2018), a random survey was done amongst groups of five to 10 nurses on how they carry
out disinfection procedures when handling a patient in the outpatient and the inpatient
department. Nurses were trained in these groups on how to handle patients at all levels and how
frequent sanitization procedures should be done. They were observed two hours later after
training during their active sessions. These two articles are essential to my PICOT questions
since there were assessed hand hygiene practices carried in Hospitals and how such practices
determine the rate of acquisition of Hospital infections.
The study methods used.
In research conducted by Koff, (2014), a randomized interventional clinical trial was done where
3256 participants were involved who had come for treatment. The title given to the study was
‘reduction in 30-day postoperative Healthcare-Associated infections’. In this case, the number of
patients with postoperative Healthcare Acquired Infections 30 days after the operation procedure
were identified. Patients who had prior infections or prior existing decolonization were included
and were equally distributed to study groups that had been given a randomized study design.
New sites of infections /different infection organisms were considered for HCAI analysis.
Secondary outcome measures included looking at the hospital readmission rates within 30 days,