Hand Washing is the Number One Preventative Strategy in Infection Control

Hand Washing
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Hand Washing
Infections are one of the biggest challenges facing healthcare today. Some common infections in healthcare facilities include surgical site infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, central line-associated bloodstream infections, and ventilator-associated pneumonia (Monegro et al. 2022). While infections pose a significant threat to healthcare, several strategies can be implemented to prevent their spread, including hand washing, appropriate patient placement, safe injection practices, respiratory hygiene, and proper cleaning and disinfection of patient care equipment (Habboush et al. 2022). While hand washing is one of several infection prevention strategies, it is arguably the most effective.
Hand washing is considered the most important prevention strategy by major health organizations in the world. Of all the standard precautions for infections, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] (2018) lists hand hygiene as the number one prevention strategy. The organization considers hand hygiene “the most important measure” in the prevention of infections among healthcare personnel and patients (CDC 2018). This underpins hand washing as an integral component of infection prevention strategies. Furthermore, Abbas & Stevens (2018), in an article published by the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), also consider hand hygiene the most important prevention strategy for infections. The authors recommend that hand hygiene be complemented with other strategies. The World Health Organization [WHO] (2022) also ranks hand hygiene as significant in protecting health workers and patients from infections. The organization even started a campaign (World Hand Hygiene Day 2022) to sensitive members of the planet to clean their hands to prevent infections. Therefore, with major health organizations in the world prioritizing hand hygiene, it is clear that hand washing is the number one preventive strategy in controlling infections.
The role of hands in spreading infections further underpins the value of handwashing as an effective prevention strategy. According to CDC (2020), animal and human feces can get to people's hands when they ...