Assignments task:
The nurse, when attempting to find a research item to confront a nursing problem may only need to look at their place of employment. At a previous facility, I worked in there was an apparent lack of new nurses adhering to hand hygiene regulations. The rule for the facility was to use hand sanitizer going in and coming out of the patient's room. However, when I would ask them why don't do it and the majority stated that they were too busy and forgot due to abnormally high staffing ratios. The problem is then identified as a lack of hand hygiene adherence.
Evidence also reinforces the attitudes of the nursing staff toward hand hygiene compliance. A survey study was performed and listed the top identifiers for nurses not adhering to hand hygiene compliance as increased patient/staff interactions, perceived performance by peers, busyness, and cognitive load in their role (Sands & Aunger, 2020). This survey evidence further connects the link between perceived business with not adhering to hand hygiene guidelines.
Confronting hand hygiene compliance with nurses has the possibility of not only saving lives and money but also will work to prevent the spread of hospital-acquired infections. As we nurses took the oath to "do no harm", we must confront this neglection of hand hygiene compliance for the sake of every patient. Evidence from a hospital in Finland found that with an increased hand hygiene compliance rate from 76.4 percent in 2013 to 88.5 percent in 2018 came also a drop in hospital-acquired infections from 2012 to 1831 and a drop in hospital-acquired infection incidence rates (Ojanperä et al., 2020). This will inherently increase patient outcomes by preventing the spread of hospital-acquired infections that will lead to shorter lengths of hospital stays. Patients do not enter the hospital to contract a disease. Therefore, it behooves the nurse to confront hand hygiene noncompliance as a nurse would be a serious threat to the life of a patient.