Skin Health
Resurgent believes that good skin hygiene only occurs where there is good skin health. Contact irritant dermatitis is ranked as a top concern for healthcare workers and is one of the factors contributing to poor hand hygiene practice. This condition can include redness, inflammation, extreme dryness, and chapping often caused by frequent handwashing or sanitizing with damaging and caustic chemicals and detergents.
The harmful effects to hands can result in decreases in hand hygiene compliance across the board. Even more worrisome, excessive dryness of hands can cause skin lesions, which promote the growth of bacteria, or excessive skin dryness which presents the risk of higher bacterial colonization. In turn, HAIs are spread more rapidly throughout the healthcare system. It’s a frightening, but all too common, cycle.
Alcohol’s Effect
Alcohol-based hand sanitizers, though a necessary part of the infection prevention process, are known to have irritating effects on the skin. Alcohol hand rubs work by stripping the outer layers of the skin, thus destroying the germs present on the skin. Overuse
will inevitably cause dry and abraded hands and effect skin health.
A combination of handwashing with antimicrobial agents and application of alcohol based sanitizers is recommended by most governing bodies and infection control experts, including the CDC. Automating the hand hygiene process with Resurgent hand washing stations eases the negative effects of excessive manual scrubbing and overuse of alcohol agents.
What are the steps to creating a realistic hand hygiene program?
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