Hand washing and hand gel

August 5, 2008

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Manoj Jain, an infectious disease physician in Memphis and a medical director of Medicare’s quality improvement organization in Tennessee writes in the Washington Post about hand washing. I particularly like the section about how much time should be taken up every shift with hand washing.

Manoj states “For one thing, rigorous hand washing is time-consuming. Guidelines advise that we first rinse, then soap for 20 seconds, then rinse again for 30 seconds; after this, we paper-dry our hands and turn the faucet off using the paper towel. For health-care workers, the procedure is supposed to be followed before and after every patient encounter. That means two minutes per patient visit, which adds up to an hour for a doctor who sees an average 30 patients a day, and 2 1/2 hours per shift for an ICU nurse. I have yet to find a doctor or a nurse who is so diligent… In the past few years, the hand-washing exercise has gotten simpler, with the increased acceptance of alcohol-based gels”.

Click here to read more about hand washing.