Evidence Based Practice Essay

Hand hygiene practices are important thing to infection prevention and control practice. As health provider especially ED staff or front liner, to follow hand washing protocols is necessary in any situation. According Practice Standard (2009) four major elements to preventing practice; hand washing, protective barriers, care of equipment and health practice of nurse. Cite from Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland, scientists has found around 45% of infections can be prevented by washing hands regularly. MOH (2010) increasing in hand-washing compliance by

Roy, L. (2016). Maintaining hand hygiene to prevent the transmission of infection. Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, 5(6),

Itroduction: Evidence-based practice is an approach to medicine that uses scientific evidence to determine the best practice (Beyea & Slattery, 2006). As nurses perform their daily tasks they must continually ask themselves, “What is the evidence for this intervention?”. Nurses are well positioned to question current nursing practices and use evidence to make care more effective. In order to improve patients’ outcomes it is the responsibility of the nurse to transition evidence-based practice into the norm, through application of daily practice (Flynn Makic, Rauen, Watson & Will Poteet, 2014). Continual evaluation of current practice must be performed to ensure the use of evidence-based practice opposed to practice based upon tradition. The implementation of evidence-based practice standardizes healthcare practices and diminishes groundless variations within care. These variations lead to the production of uncertain health outcomes (Stevens, 2013).

The impact of evidence based practice has been brought into nursing through education, practice, and science over the last decade. Evidence based practice provides quality care to patients that is effective, safe, and efficient. Evidence based practice promises moving care to a high level of producing the intended health outcome for the patients. “EBP is aimed at hardwiring current knowledge into common care decisions to improve care processes and patient outcomes” (Stevens, 2013). EBP empowers nurses and expands their skills by using the best available evidence to guide nursing care and patient outcomes.

This study was intended to prove that hand hygiene practiced according to the CDC guidelines will decrease the incidence of hospital acquired infections. This could not really be proved in this study since the hospitals were not able to maintain improvement in hand hygiene. Health care workers were familiar with guidelines but significant practice changes were not maintained. Some of the infection rates did improve during this time but the correlation with hand hygiene is not consistent. There were other practice changes occurring during this same time and those changes may be responsible for the decreased infection rates.

There are numerous evidence-based practice interventions that have become standard nursing practices across the country. Hand hygiene is a nursing practice intervention that is currently evidence (research) based. It is one of, if not the most, important interventions practiced in providing standardized care. The rationale behind that statement refers to the high percentage of hospital acquired infections; hand hygiene practices are measures used for maximum effectiveness in reducing the spread of these infections. Compared to the various health care professionals who come in contact with patients when providing care, nurses are by far the largest faction that implements the highest quantity of direct patient care in health care. That said, of all the asepsis precautions, techniques, and interventions that are currently in place, hand hygiene is the single most effective intervention used by nurse to prevent themselves from infection and the cross-infection to their patients. Although this evidence-based intervention is of utmost importance to implement at all times, research shows the difficulty in influencing nurses and other health care professionals to practice hand hygiene as often as recommended.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of hand hygiene and how it decreases the transmission of infection throughout (Bloomfield, Aiello, Cookson, O'Boyle, & Larson, 2007). Handwashing can include alcohol based hygiene items and handwashing with soap and water. This study main focus was on North American and Europe. There is plenty of supporting rationale to backup why this study was conducted. Some of the few things this study wanted to achieve are hand hygiene is key to staying healthy and reducing infection. This needs to be followed both in the workplace and around the community to abstain from infections. Handwashing can be achieved by soap and water or hand sanitizers that removes or eliminates many microorganisms on the surface of the hand (de Oliveira Dourado, da Costa Barros, Diogo de Vasconcelos, & da Silva Santos, 2017). This can impact many individuals by using this technique to keep foreign germs off of the hands. The importance of washing hands

Literature reviews provide adequate supporting evidence for the evidence-based practice (EBP) process (Cowell, 2016). By using the information obtained from the literature review, that supports the topic, one can evaluate a situation and arrive at the problem that needs a solution. Therefore, an appropriate technique is necessary when searching for the right literature and evidence (Cowell, 2016).

Evidence based practice can be defined as the process of making clinical evaluations based on research evidence, combined with clinical expertise and patient preferences (Schmidt and Brown, 2014). Evidence Based Practice is an essential part of various healthcare professions, which include medicine, nursing, psychology and allied health. In order to carry out evidence based nursing practice, nurses need to use critical thinking skills to evaluate research publications and other sources of information (Schmidt and Brown, 2014). Once the information is assessed, nurses use their clinical decision-making skills to use evidence to patient care (Schmidt and Brown, 2014). Patient expectations and needs are the base of all nursing care decisions and hence are an important part of Evidence based nursing (Schmidt and Brown, 2014).

Benton, C. and Cormack, D. (2000). Reviewing and evaluating the literature. In D. Cormack (ed.) The Research Process in Nursing. 4th Edition. London: London Chapter.

Since the 1970’s the term evidence-based health care has progressively been used more, the expansion of evidence-based health care has risen with the development of being able to access a range of information. Other factors that have contributed to the use of evidence based health care include; changing of public expectations, political consensus, cost pressures and professional accountability (Hamer Collinsons 2005, cited by Cutcliffe W. & J. Ward M, 2004).

The number of health-care associated infections and patient safety must be addressed and improved by actions and plans that can be implemented as soon as possible. Estimates indicate that hundreds of millions of patients contract these infections worldwide on a yearly basis. This article outlines the need for hand hygiene in order to prevent and control healthcare-associated infections (also referred to as HCAI’s). It states that a large number of HCAI’s are preventable, and measures regarding strict observance of hand hygiene methods must be taken. In October 2004, from all corners of the globe, patient groups, governmental agencies and policy-makers held a meeting advance the patient safety goal of "first, do no harm” and to essentially promote

Healthcare associated infections have an impact on patients - how? Can be prevented greatly with compliance to hand hygiene protocols (REF).

Improving care can be tricky but necessary for the success of the organization. One way to improve the condition of the hospital is to ensure that patients are thoroughly examined to receive all necessary care during the initial hospital visit to lessen the chance of people returning to treat an ailment that could have been treated the first time. According to Rigby, Pegram, & Woodward, (2017), Hand washing can significantly reduce the spread of hospital acquired infections nonetheless, evidence suggests that many healthcare workers are not following the hand washing recommendation (p. 448). The organization must reiterate the importance of hand washing procedures to the staff but also inform them by avoiding this process is harmful to the

Practices in the healthcare field continuously evolve through evidence-based practice (EBP). Evidence-based practice is known as a problem-solving approach to delivering quality health care, and ensuring the best patient outcomes. It is done by integrating one’s own clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research (Mazurek and Fineout-Overholt, 2015). The use of evidence-based practice and its components can help healthcare workers make clinical decisions to enhance the contingency for best clinical outcomes and quality of life for patients and in the work field.