Training and Education of Hand Hygiene among Nursing Professionals to Reduce Hospital Acquired Infection

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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NURS2006 ASSIGNMENT 5
Clinical Practice Improvement Project Report
Student Name, FAN and ID:
Project Title:
Do training and education of hand hygiene among the nursing professionals helps to reduce
the incidence of hospital acquired infection by increasing awareness among the nurses and
thereby helping to decrease the healthcare cost and length of stay in hospital?
PICO format
1. Population: Nursing professionals
2. Intervention: Hand hygiene training and education
3. Context: Hospital acquired infection
4. Outcome: Increase awareness of hand hygiene and decrease in the incidence of
hospital acquired infection (HAIs) through contact contamination and decrease in
length of hospital stay and health care cost
Project Aim:
The aim of the project is increase the hand hygiene compliance among the nursing
professionals and measure the rate of decrease in the incidence of hospital acquired infection
post training session
Relevance of Clinical Governance to your project
The four pillars of clinical governance includes: Clinical Effectiveness, Clinical risk
management, Patient experience, Professional development and management. The main pillar

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of the clinical governance which is relevant to this project is clinical risk management. This is
because the project aims to highlight how the compliance of hand hygiene helps decrease the
risk of developing hospital acquired infection. The development of the hospital acquired
infection is enlisted as a potential clinical risk. Apart from increasing the length of stay in
hospital and increase in the overall cost of care, the nosocomial infection also increases the
clinical risk. The development of the hospital acquired infection through multidrug resistant
bacteria increases the overall fatal risk of the patients (Yallew, Kumie & Yehuala, 2017). Ray
et al. (2017) are of the opinion that the hospital acquired infection like methicillin resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are highly contagious and once infected, it colonises to
different parts of the body leading to the development of skin infection, infection at the site of
surgical wound, bloodstream, lungs and urinary tract. Such multidrug resistant infection is
difficult to cure and can affect the surrounding patients along with other healthcare
professionals and thus increasing the overall clinical risk.
Evidence that the issue / problem is worth solving:
According to Hor et al. (2016) hospital acquired infection or healthcare-associated infections
(HAIs) are one of the frequently occurring adverse events which hampers the quality of care.
As per the systematic review conducted by Mitchell et al. (2017) via the analysis of the
papers published in between 2010 to 2016, there are 165,000 reported cases of HAIs
occurring in Australia each year. The review conducted by Mitchell et al. (2017) also stated
that the main outcome of the HAIs under the Australian setting is increase in the rate of
urinary tract infection, Clostridium difficile infection, and surgical site infection, respiratory
tract infection among the patients who are recovering from acute stroke and skin or wound
site infection by Staphylococcus aureus. Other data reports the increase in the occurrence of
the pulmonary infection leading to pneumonia, gastrointestinal infection leading to stomach
upset and blood stream infection leading to sepsis. This increase in the tendency of infection

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increases the overall cost of care, increase in the length of hospital stay along with hamper in
the overall health-related well-being of the patients and their family members (Brewster,
Tarrant & Dixon-Woods, 2016). With the generation of the multidrug resistant bacteria, the
conditions are becoming worse because the HAIs developed through multidrug resistant
bacteria has no cure or definite antimicrobial therapy (Brewster, Tarrant & Dixon-Woods,
2016). Brewster, Tarrant and Dixon-Woods (2016) highlighted touch contamination as the
main source of HAIs. The hands of the healthcare workers are regarded as the primary vector
behind the transmission of micro-organisms between the patients and the surrounding
healthcare environment. Since the nursing professionals devote majority of their time with
the patient, they are highlighted as the principal target behind the spread of HAIs through the
touch of contaminated hands (Pan et al., 2014). According to Shinde and Mohite (2014)
under extreme pressure, the nursing professionals fail to abide by proper hand hygiene
protocol while procuring care to their patients. They also lack proper knowledge, attitude and
practices of five moments of hand hygiene among the nursing professionals as proposed by
the World Health Organisation (WHO). Huis et al. (2012) that that the proper knowledge of
the nursing professionals towards the compliance of the hand hygiene to reduce the chances
of developing HAIs. Monistrol et al. (2012) stated that use of hand hygiene mainly comprise
the alcohol based hand rub as a multimodal intervention to prevent HAIs.
Key Stakeholders:
1. Nursing professionals: They are the main target for training program as according to
NMBA Code of Professional Conduct (2018), the nurses are required to practice in a safe and
competent manner
2. Educators: They can be experienced and registered nursing professionals who will help to
increase the awareness about importance of hand hygiene among nurses