Failure to Perform Proper Hand Hygiene During Wound Care Procedure
Penalty
Summary
The deficiency involves a failure to follow infection prevention and control practices during a wound care dressing change for one resident reviewed for wound care. During an observation of a wound care procedure, the Wound Care Coordinator prepared wound care supplies without performing hand washing or hand sanitizing, while opening and touching the treatment cart drawers. The Wound Care Coordinator opened a surgical drape and touched it with bare hands, touched her glasses, and then used the same hand to type on her laptop while reading the wound care order. She then opened another drawer and removed a stack of gauze with bare hands before using hand sanitizer and removing additional supplies from the cart. In an interview conducted shortly after the observation, the Wound Care Coordinator acknowledged that she should practice handwashing and infection control practices before, between, and after wound care, and verified that she used hand sanitizer only after opening the surgical drape and preparing other wound care supplies. The Infection Preventionist stated that for a clean wound care procedure, the nurse should wash hands, gather equipment, wash hands again, don PPE, and then complete the wound care, and further explained that the outside of the wound care treatment cart is considered dirty and that hand hygiene should be performed after touching the outside of the cart and before handling wound care dressing supplies. The facility’s infection control policy requires hand hygiene before and after direct patient contact and after each situation that necessitates hand hygiene, using alcohol-based hand rubs or hand washing for 20 seconds.
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