Special Considerations of Hand Hygiene (Nursing)

00:04 Now let's take a few more minutes to talk about some things about hand hygiene that we need to remember.

00:10 You want to make sure that you wash your hands with soap and water if we remember if they're visibly soiled.

00:16 Now, I know we use gloves a lot, but this does not eliminate the need to wash our hands.

00:22 So we're going to use gloves a lot for procedures, but that still means we've got to wash our hands after.

00:28 The gloves are not the end all.

00:30 Also, it's a great idea to talk to your patients about hand hygiene.

00:35 So tell your patients about hand hygiene.

00:37 The families also they can help keep us accountable as health care providers to make sure we remember to do hand hygiene as well.

00:46 Now want to leave you with a few more notes.

00:49 One thing we want to make sure is that we keep our hands healthy because we're going to do a lot of hand hygiene.

00:56 So when we're scrubbing our hands, try not to do with something like metal or hard or abrasive.

01:02 We need to keep our skin integrity intact.

01:05 We don't want the openings to open us up for infection.

01:09 Also artificial nails.

01:11 Okay, so I know this is a big topic, but if you've noticed a lot of agencies have a policy that nurses cannot wear artificial nails.

01:19 You may think, "Okay, well why is that?" Well, that can harbor a lot of bacteria.

01:24 We don't want to pass this on to our patients.

01:26 So again, check your agency's policy.

01:29 Lastly, one more tip before we go.

01:31 Again, we talked about all the hand hygiene you're going to do.

01:35 It's really common actually that we get breaks in our skin.

01:39 It gets really dry, our hands get really flaky.

01:42 Again that opens us up for skin infection, so make sure maybe use like a non fragrance lotion, something gentle to make sure we moisturize hands.

01:53 Keep those in good conditions so you can keep continuing with patient care.

01:57 Thanks for watching.