Summary C493 Leadership Experience Task1.docx

Leadership Experience Task 1 C493 A. 1. Hand Hygiene a. The current issue on my unit, and an issue that has been present since last year, is the lack of hand hygiene. This is extremely pertinent as hand hygiene is ess ...

Leadership Experience Task 1 C493 A. 1. Hand Hygiene a. The current issue on my unit, and an issue that has been present since last year, is the lack of hand hygiene. This is extremely pertinent as hand hygiene is essential to providing adequate patient care. According to the CDC, about 1 in 25 patients acquires a health care- associated infection (HAI) due to poor hand hygiene during their hospital care, resulting in up to 722,000 infections a year. Of these, 75,000 patients die of their infections (Hand Hygiene in Healthcare Settings, 2018). Performing hand hygiene is considered to be the most important infection prevention measure; thus, to prevent contamination, good hand washing must be practiced. This is particularly important on my unit as I work on an Orthopedics floor with medical overflow. Because of the medical overflow, there is a higher chance of spreading an infection, especially to the orthopedic patient. On a typical day I have 5-6 patients and will constantly be in and out of each room touching the patient and various equipment. Without performing proper hand hygiene, my patients are exposed to many surrounding infections. 2. a. Currently, the hand hygiene compliance results on my unit from December 2017 to May 2018 are as follows: December: 58.5% January: 81.1% February: 100% March: 72.1% April: 71.7% May: 66% The 6th month rolling total is 70.4%, putting my unit as the worst floor for hand hygiene compliance out of 27 units. In addition to this, an audit that was randomly taken during a day shift for the month of May, showed 30% hand hygiene compliance. Clearly, there is poor compliance in regards to hand hygiene on my unit. 3. a. There are several issues that may be contributing to this problem. First, lack of education. There are no educational boards or signs in the unit regarding the importance of hand hygiene and the risks that come with poor compliance. Second, the stress of having 5-6 patients and at times total patient care patients, which means there is no CNA for that particular patient, and the RN is responsible for total care. This results in the RN feeling overwhelmed and overlooking hand hygiene dispensers. Third, carrying too many supplies and thus failing to perform hand hygiene. Lastly, there are no rewards for good hand hygiene compliance. 4. a. There are numerous ways to help improve hand hygiene compliance. First and for most, I would create educational projects. I would post educational posters in the break room, conference room, bathrooms, and one at either nurses’ station. Along with this, I would present statistical information regarding the risks of failing to perform hand hygiene at several meetings. I would also educate the patient that it is okay for them to ask if their health care team has done hand hygiene, this will keep the health care team accountable. In addition, I would place large, attention grabbing signs near patient rooms that remind faculty to perform hand hygiene. Lastly, I would offer rewards to those who are seen performing hand hygiene. 5. The resources that are available to me are as follows: manager of the unit, the 4 supervisors on the unit, the educator on the unit, the entire orthopedic staff, direct of nursing, the infection and disease team, and other units. I would work with my staff to determine further barriers and seek additional ways for improvement. In addition, I would assess other units and determine what works well for them. I would collaborate with the manager and supervisors to ensure my proposals are adequate and attainable. Furthermore, I would also collaborate with the director of nursing and obtain any resources from them as well. Also, I would work closely with the infection and disease to collect data on hand hygiene compliance on not only my floor but house wide. The cost benefit analysis is that I would be spending out of pocket costs to purchase the educational materials and small rewards. Overall, improving hand hygiene would prevent health care-associated infections (HAI), thus saving the hospital money in the long run. 6. The timeline of the implementation would be 6 months. However, I would conduct monthly audits to ensure up-to-date data and as a way to keep the staff engaged and informed. I would also provide education in meetings every 3-4 months to ensure consistency in education and involvement. 7. Partners for the proposal would be some of those mentioned as resources. In particular, the manager of the unit, unit supervisors, and the infection and disease team. a. I engaged most with the unit supervisor Iliana, who helped me understand the various way that she as supervisor gets out information to the staff. She mentioned providing an OLA (online learning academy), which would require the staff to read information and be quizzed on the material. She also mentioned that I could audit charting, as there is a place in our EMR that shows that we educated the patient about hand hygiene and that hand hygiene was actually performed. She agreed that more education was needed, especially during the meetings and enjoyed the idea of attention grabbing signs or educational posters. The discussion with my manager was also helpful in that she supported my proposals to educate, to reward, and to perform monthly audits. In the end, my manager was the one to give me the okay to proceed and the confidence knowing that she will be there for additional resources and support. b. In order to achieve success, I must work closely with my manager and supervisor. I intend to do this by showing them my educational projects before implementing them for feedback and sharing with them the results. I intend to keep them updated on all changes or new ideas, and will continue to have at least a monthly informative meeting with them. I also intend to keep in touch with the infection and disease team as they keep close track of hand hygiene compliance and it would be beneficial to share with them my own data and interventions that worked. 8. I would implement my proposal by first going to other units who have high hygiene compliance and determine what solutions they have created. This will help me with my own ideas. I would then determine if I’m able to implement these particular interventions. I would then create educational projects that would contain data regarding the risks that come with poor hand hygiene in order to help the staff understand its significance. I would then create posters to place around the unit that remind staff to perform hand hygiene. Also, I would inform my staff that I would be performing random audits and will be providing prizes to those who I catch performing hand hygiene such as pens, gum, pocket size hand sanitizers, lip balm, etc. This would all take my own personal time and out of pocket costs, which I am willing to do. Lastly, the data would be collected not only by own audits, but also by the hospital who performs their