Hand Hygiene

Have you heard enough lately about the importance of washing your hands?  In this lesson, we are going to give you even more information about the importance of hand hygiene as it pertains to nursing and the prevention of nosocomial and community spread infections.  We’re going to go over differences between hand washing and hand sanitizers and also when to use gloves for hand protection. Finally we will outline the proper way to put on (don) and take off (doff) gloves to prevent the spread of potential infection from the gloves onto the nurse’s hands or other surfaces.

Learning Objectives:

Upon the completion of this lesson, learners will be able to:

1. Explain the importance of hand hygiene compliance
2. Recognize situations that would indicate a need for hand hygiene
3. Describe situations that would indicate hand washing over using hand sanitizers
4. Identify indications for wearing gloves
5. Review the proper process of removing gloves