The First Step in Infection Control is Hand Hygiene Clean hands are more than a matter of soap and water

When I started my career as a dental assistant in the seventies, we didn't wear gloves. We spent a lot of time washing our hands before and after each patient. However, this didn't help one of my co-workers when she accidentally stuck her thumb with a scaler. The bacteria on her hand caused a staph infection to develop. The muscle tissue around the wound became necrotic and had to be surgically removed. After months of painful recuperation, she was finally able to return to work but holding dental instruments without the padding of her thumb was uncomfortable.

Today as dental professionals, we diligently wash our hands to remove bacteria and other organisms. We don new gloves for each patient and then wash our hands again after removing gloves. We might wash our hands as many as fifty times per day, maybe more. If we don't pay attention to what products we put on our hands, we could subject our hands to painful irritation, damage, dryness or discomfort.

Evidence supports the premise that improved hand hygiene can reduce health care associated infection rates. Failure to perform appropriate hand hygiene is considered one of the leading causes of health care associated infections and has been recognized as a substantial contributor to outbreaks. However, frequent and repeated use of hand hygiene products, particularly soaps and other detergents, are a primary cause of chronic irritant contact dermatitis among health care workers.1 Discomfort due to irritation can interfere with adherence to recommended hand hygiene practices. This article will address the selection of hand hygiene products and recommendations for performing proper hand hygiene in accordance with the CDC Guidelines.

History of hand hygiene

According to the 2002 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines for hand hygiene in health care 2011 WINNER Leslie Canham, CDA, RDA, CSP Speaker, Consultant, Trainer Leslie Canham & Associates The First Step in Infection Control is Hand Hygiene Clean hands are more than a matter of soap and water settings, the concept of cleansing hands with an antiseptic agent probably emerged in the early 19th century. In 1961, the U.S. Public Health Service produced a training film on hand washing techniques directing health care workers to wash their hands with soap and water for 1-2 minutes...