Background for this assignment
Healthcare associated infections (HCAI) can impact patient safety and lead to increased morbidity and mortality as well as adding to the costs of care. Proper hand hygiene has been identified as one of the most effective means to prevent and control the incidence of healthcare associated infections. However compliance is often an issue with clinical staff often not adhering to guidelines related to infection control and hand hygiene. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has developed guidelines in relation to hand hygiene and infection control. You can download this to read.
One aspect of reducing HCAI is to understand the mechanisms by which infections may be spread and secondly to implement strategies such as hand hygiene to reduce the risk of cross contamination.
What you need to do for this assignment
In this assignment you need to identify the mechanisms of how infections may be spread in the healthcare environment and review the evidence for specific actions that can be undertaken to reduce or prevent the spread HCAI’s. Then examine the evidence for different strategies used to ensure hand hygiene compliance.
How will I do this?
You need to search some of the library databases of electronic journals for recent publications related to Infection control, in particular the evidence for hand hygiene and the different approaches to hand hygiene.
Do a search for publications on this area that are less than 5 years old (there are many studies on hand hygiene) on hand hygiene and hand hygiene compliance. Use the evidence to support your discussion.
Whatever you do do not reference Wikipedia or similar websites
Do I need to reference?
Yes and you must use APA style
How many references do I need?
There is no specific number, you need enough to adequately address the topic. If you have 2 or 3 references that indicates very little research into the topic and suggests a very superficial attempt.
If you have 10 you have obviously done more research into the topic so will most likely answer the topic more thoroughly.
How many words?
Yes there is a word limit of 1500 word ( + or - 10%)
Setting it out
Please make sure you double space the text and use 12 point font, use headings and ensure you name is on the assignment. Page numbers are helpful as well.