Reflection on Safe Health Practices Essay 2022

Running head: REFLECTION ON SAFE HEALTH PRACTICES
REFLECTION ON SAFE HEALTH PRACTICES
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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REFLECTION ON SAFE HEALTH PRACTICES
First reflection: Ineffective hand hygiene practice
Introduction:
Gibbs reflective cycle is a framework, which is extensively used by healthcare
professionals to reflect their experiences. This cycle encourages and guides people in thinking
systematically about their experiences that they had during specific situation, event, or activity. It
comprises of six important stages. This assignment would use those six stages to reflect on such
an incident and help to develop meanings, knowledge, and skills from the experience.
Description:
During the time of placement, I had the opportunity of working in a medical-surgical
ward. It was a very busy shift and every nurse was rushing from one patient to another patient for
meeting the care needs. I was also overburdened with work and it seemed to me that I had no
time to breathe as well. However, I understood the urgency of the situations and made up my
mind to try my best to meet the needs of the patient. One of the patients in the ward had diabetic
foot ulcer, which needed to be dressed. I immediately attended her and started changing the
dressing where I failed to maintain proper hand hygiene before changing the wounds. Within two
days, I got the report that his wounds have worsened further with multiple infections. I was
called by me mentor who discussed with me about the unsafe approaches to care and made me
aware not to repeat such actions again.
Feelings:
I felt embarrassed in front of my mentor, as I could not provide care up to his
expectations. I felt upset and disappointed with myself in forgetting to maintain hand hygiene

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REFLECTION ON SAFE HEALTH PRACTICES
while caring for the patient. I also felt guilty thinking of the sufferings and pain that the patient
might have gone through because of my improper care services. At one time, I started feeling
that I am not suitable for this profession as I was exposing patients to more suffering than curing
their healthcare needs. However, I realized that I would need to face my fears and challenges and
overcome them to become an expert nurse.
Evaluation:
The bad aspect of the healthcare procedures that was adopted for the patient was that
proper hand hygiene was not followed which resulted in infection of wounds. Hand hygiene is
considered one of the most significant methods for the prevention of the spread of the infections.
Jones et al. (2017) is of the opinion that germs present on the hands of nursing professionals can
transmit dangerous organisms to the patients. Chassin et al. (2015) has stated that on average,
healthcare providers clan their hands less than half of the times they should do. Data shows that
this poor practice contributes to the spread of healthcare associated infections that have the
ability in affecting 1 in 25 hospital patients on any given day. This not only affects the patients
who have been admitted to the healthcare organization for the treatment of other healthcare
needs but also increases the risk of affecting their own selves and other healthcare professionals
affecting their productivity, their health and increasing absenteeism. Jeong and Kim (2016) had
stated that healthcare associated infections not only increases the suffering of patients who had
been admitted to treat other disorders but also increases their stay in hospital and possibilities of
re-admission as well. This creates huge financial burden on the patients but also on the
healthcare resources of the healthcare organizations. It also results in emotional pain and
suffering on the patient where they tend to lose their trust and respect on the healthcare
professionals (Kingston et al. 2017). This affects the collaboration and cooperation between