Hand-Washing Can Prevent Infections
A recent New York Times article, Doctor Leads Quest for Safer Ways to Care for Patients, highlights the critical importance of hand-washing in patient safety. Although the article is directed at patient safety in hospitals, the same principle applies to nursing homes. According to this article, most hospital doctors only wash their hands 30-40% of the time! Even the doctors at the better hospitals only wash their hands 70% of the time. Dr. Peter J. Pronovost of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore implemented a checklist that required hand-washing and empowered nurses to enforce the checklist. As a result of the checklist, infection rates went down to almost zero. In our cases, we have heard stories from nurses and CNAs about how budget cuts have led to a shortage of sterile gloves, which are necessary for many routine procedures. We’ve heard about nursing staff having to reuse gloves on different patients while doing wound dressing changes. We’ve heard about people doing peri-care without hand-washing either before or after the process. For a person who has a weak immune system, a facility-acquired infection can be deadly. 
