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Hand Hygiene

Wash Your Hands!

Hand hygiene is a term used to cover both hand washing using soap and water, and cleaning hands with waterless or alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

Why Hand Hygiene is Important and When to Wash Your Hands
Five common ways germs are spread:

• Nose, mouth, or eyes to hands to others:
  Germs can spread to the hands by sneezing, coughing, or rubbing the eyes and then can be transferred to other family members or friends. Simply washing your hands can help prevent such illnesses as the common cold or eye infections.
• Hands to food:
  Usually germs are transmitted from unclean hands to food by an infected food preparer who didn’t wash his or her hands after using the toilet. The germs are then passed to those who eat the food. This is easily prevented by always washing your hands after using the toilet and before preparing food items.
• Food to hands to food:
  Germs are transmitted from raw foods, such as chicken, to hands while preparing a meal. The germs on the hands are then transferred to other uncooked foods, such as salad. Cooking the raw food kills the initial germs, but the salad remains contaminated.
• Infected child to hands to other children:
  Germs are passed from a child with diarrhea to the hands of the parent during diaper changing. If the parent doesn’t immediately wash his or her hands, the germs that cause diarrhea are then passed to others.
• Animals to people:
  Wash your hands after petting animals or touching any surfaces they come into contact with.

Washing Hands with Soap and Water

The three components needed are :

1. Soap
2. Warm water
3. Friction

Technique:

• Six steps:
  1.   Wet hands with warm, running water.
  2.   Add soap.
  3.   Rub hands vigorously for 20 seconds.
     1.   Backs of hands
     2.   Wrists
     3.   Between fingers
     4.   Tips of fingers
     5.   Thumbs under fingernails—nailbrush is best
     •   Backs of hands
     •   Wrists
     •   Between fingers
     •   Tips of fingers
     •   Thumbs under fingernails—nailbrush is best

  Wash all surfaces including:

  4.   Rinse.
     •   Keep fingers pointing down
  5.   Dry vigorously with paper or clean cloth towel.
  6.   Turn off faucet with towel and open door with towel.

How it works:

• The soap suspends the dirt and soils.
• The friction motion helps pull dirt and greasy or oily soils free from the skin.
• Warm running water washes away suspended dirt and soils that trap germs.
• Final friction of wiping hands removes more germs.

Cleaning Hands with Hand Sanitizer

The two components needed for waterless cleaning are:

1. Waterless hand sanitizer
2. Friction

Technique:

Four steps:

• Make sure all organic matter is removed from hands.
  All visible organic matter (for example: dirt) must be removed from hands prior to applying waterless hand sanitizer.
• Apply a dime sized amount of waterless hand sanitizer to the palm of one hand or use a waterless hand sanitizer wipe.
• Rub hands together covering all surfaces of hands and fingers.
• Rub until waterless hand sanitizer is absorbed.

How it works:

Waterless hand sanitizer provides several advantages over hand washing with soap and water. However, they are not effective if organic matter (dirt, food, or other material) is visible on hands.

Benefits of waterless hand sanitizer:

• require less time than hand washing
• act quickly to kill microorganisms on hands
• are more accessible than sinks
• reduce bacterial counts on hands
• do not promote antimicrobial resistance
• are less irritating to skin than soap and water
• some can even improve condition of skin

The number one and most important thing anyone can do is

WASH YOUR HANDS WELL!

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Copyright © 2008 MRSA Diagnosis

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