Task 1 C493 Leadership
Name:
May 18, 2020
, Identify a problem or issue that aligns with the organizational priorities you seek
to solve. Explain the problem or issue, including why it is applicable to the area of
practice you chose and the healthcare environment
When seeking information for an organizational problem to work to fix I found
that a major concern of the hospital is infection control. Preventing the start of
infections in the hospital is a multi-disciplinary approach. Infections effect “ more than
1.7 million Americans are diagnosed with a hospital-acquired healthcare-associated infection
(HAI), with almost 100,000 dying from their infection”( Four Facts about Infection and Its Prevention
2018) In my hospital it is estimated to cause an increase cost of over $30,000 an admission and
add over 7 days to a patients length of stay. Infections are costly, life altering and deadly so
because of this infection prevention is key. I work in a very busy 16 bed critical care unit. We
take care of the sickest of the sick and often patients come in with one problem and leave with a
hospital acquired infection. When assessing what areas my unit can improve our infection
prevention numbers I found that hand hygiene was a serious area that we were lacking on.
According to the CDC, about 1 in 25 patients acquires a health care-associated infection (HAI)
due to poor hand hygiene during their hospital care, resulting in up to 722,000 infections a year.
Of these, 75,000 patients die of their infections (Hand Hygiene in Healthcare Settings, 2018)
Healthcare workers are the front line to caring and touching patients. Without adequate hand
hygiene it allows antibiotic resistant bacteria to spread. In one study WHO found that” on
average, 61% of healthcare workers—in some facilities up to 90%—do not adhere to best
handwashing practices, even when supplies are available.” (The Global Handwashing
Partnership 2017) Also one fact I found is it “estimates of the cost of hospital-acquired infections
Name:
May 18, 2020
, Identify a problem or issue that aligns with the organizational priorities you seek
to solve. Explain the problem or issue, including why it is applicable to the area of
practice you chose and the healthcare environment
When seeking information for an organizational problem to work to fix I found
that a major concern of the hospital is infection control. Preventing the start of
infections in the hospital is a multi-disciplinary approach. Infections effect “ more than
1.7 million Americans are diagnosed with a hospital-acquired healthcare-associated infection
(HAI), with almost 100,000 dying from their infection”( Four Facts about Infection and Its Prevention
2018) In my hospital it is estimated to cause an increase cost of over $30,000 an admission and
add over 7 days to a patients length of stay. Infections are costly, life altering and deadly so
because of this infection prevention is key. I work in a very busy 16 bed critical care unit. We
take care of the sickest of the sick and often patients come in with one problem and leave with a
hospital acquired infection. When assessing what areas my unit can improve our infection
prevention numbers I found that hand hygiene was a serious area that we were lacking on.
According to the CDC, about 1 in 25 patients acquires a health care-associated infection (HAI)
due to poor hand hygiene during their hospital care, resulting in up to 722,000 infections a year.
Of these, 75,000 patients die of their infections (Hand Hygiene in Healthcare Settings, 2018)
Healthcare workers are the front line to caring and touching patients. Without adequate hand
hygiene it allows antibiotic resistant bacteria to spread. In one study WHO found that” on
average, 61% of healthcare workers—in some facilities up to 90%—do not adhere to best
handwashing practices, even when supplies are available.” (The Global Handwashing
Partnership 2017) Also one fact I found is it “estimates of the cost of hospital-acquired infections
