Why is hand hygiene essential?
In medicine, hygienic hand disinfection is used to reduce pathogens on the surfaces of the hands. Pathogenic germs are killed by hand disinfectants. Hygienic hand disinfection prevents the transmission of germs from one person to the next and at the same time provides self-protection for health care personnel.
Hygienic hand disinfection is always carried out before and after each patient contact to prevent pathogens from being transmitted from patient to patient. In addition, hospital staff should thoroughly disinfect their hands before any sterile work and after any work with potentially infectious material, such as urine. Hand disinfection is also necessary after any contact with the immediate patient environment, such as the patient’s bed.
It is also advisable for visitors to the hospital to thoroughly disinfect their hands both when entering the hospital or ward and when leaving the hospital. Surgical hand disinfection is more thorough than hygienic hand disinfection. It is carried out before an operation by all persons directly involved in the operation. Since sterile conditions must be present during an operation, very thorough hand disinfection before the operation is essential. This could also be interesting for you: Disinfectant
What happens during hand disinfection?
Hygienic hand disinfection is used to reduce pathogenic germs such as bacteria, viruses or fungi. In hospitals, the transmission of microorganisms from patient to patient should be avoided as far as possible. With hand disinfection, the germs on the hand surfaces are reduced to such a low number that they can no longer cause infection.
On the skin surface, the transient skin flora must be distinguished from the resident skin flora. The transient skin flora are the germs that are only temporarily present on the skin and usually do not belong to the body’s own skin flora. The resident skin flora is the one that is permanently present and is a part of our body’s own defense system.
In hygienic skin disinfection, the goal is to kill most of the transient skin flora, as this is formed by those germs that are transmitted from person to person. If surgical hand disinfection is used, the aim is to reduce both transient and resident skin flora. Surgical hand disinfection before an operation should therefore prevent any possible transmission of microorganisms.
