At Parkland Medical Center in Derry, New Hampshire, Infection Control Director Karen Cozzens, RN, MSN, CIC, admits that she wanted proof that alcohol-based hand rubs do a better job disinfecting hands in routine situations than good old-fashioned soap and water. “So I did a hand hygiene experiment,” she says. “I got 12 volunteers, and I cultured their hands before and after washing with antibacterial soap and water, and before and after using the alcohol rub.”
The results? “I was shocked,” she recalls. “The results were convincing. With soap and water there were still many bacteria colonies afterward, but after hand rub there were virtually none.” Now she uses pictures of the culture plates at staff orientations to drive home the importance of using proper hand hygiene procedures and products.
Carefully following these and other protocols has helped Parkland reduce hospital-acquired infections, particularly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the so-called “super bug” that is resistant to so many antibiotics. This has required a relentless attention to a collection of proactive interventions, including environmental decontamination, active surveillance cultures for at-risk patients, and aggressive isolation precautions.
Parkland’s nurses have become so proficient at all the aspects of MRSA prevention that they are empowered to independently screen patients on admission even if the admission criteria doesn’t automatically trigger the screening. The combination of interventions is working: The hospital’s healthcare-acquired MRSA rate has decreased for 3 years in a row, dropping from 1.2/1,000 patient days in 2003 to 0.6 in 2006.
06/01/2008
