Time to Get Serious About ‘Handshake-Free’ Health Care?

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Tombstone handshake, from Mel B, via Flickr. Tombstone handshake, from Mel B, via Flickr.

Last month in JAMA, Mark Sklansky and colleagues wrote a Viewpoint column, “Banning the Handshake From the Health Care Setting.” The article explored the idea and its feasibility, while acknowledging the importance of such rituals as handshakes in human interaction. In the end, the authors argued that it’s an idea we might need to start taking more seriously.

Is this an antisocial idea? That’s debatable, but it would certainly be a good step towards reducing transmission of infections—and one that’s probably long overdue.

It’s well known that pathogens are easily transmissible from health care workers’ hands, even if they practice hand hygiene in between seeing patients. But as the authors remind us, heath care workers are notoriously bad at doing so—they cite research showing that “compliance of health care personnel with hand hygiene programs averages 40%.”

And it’s no better in ambulatory care settings—an original research article we published in March 2013 that measured hand hygiene compliance by health care workers in an ambulatory care clinic found that, even after a campaign to improve adherence, compliance (as measured by direct observation) had only improved to between 32% and 51% at […]

2016-11-21T13:04:36-05:00June 2nd, 2014|nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Scrubs on the Street: Big Concern?

This colorized 2005 scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicted numerous clumps of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, commonly referred to by the acronym, MRSA; Magnified 2390x. CDC/via Wikimedia Commons This colorized 2005 scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicted numerous clumps of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, commonly referred to by the acronym, MRSA; Magnified 2390x. CDC/via Wikimedia Commons

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week I came across this article on the Reporting on Health blog from the Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism at the University of Southern California. It discusses one woman’s campaign to get hospital health care providers to stop wearing scrubs outside of the hospital. She wants people to photograph the ‘offenders’ and send the photos to hospital administrators. She’s concerned that the clothing will pick up infection-causing bacteria in the community and spread infection to weak, immunocompromised patients.

Wearing uniforms outside of the clinical setting has been debated on and off for years. Here’s an excerpt from an editorial comment that appeared in the March 1906 issue of AJN (you can read the full article for free as a subscriber):

AJNArchiveExcerptNursesonStreet

2016-11-21T13:05:59-05:00November 20th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing research|6 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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