VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System

Washing your hands properly can protect you and other from spreading infection.

Jeff Benoit, registered nurse, and infection control program manager at VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare Systemexplains how to properly wash your hands, and what you might spread if you don't. 

The Department of Veterans Affairs was featured in the New England Journal of Medicine and in the New York Times for its efforts in being a national leader in reducing the infection rate in its medical center.

Using simple, easy-to-follow techniques, the VA’s Health Care System has dramatically reduced the number of cases of infection from what's known as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).  MRSA is a dangerous infection, difficult to eradicate, that can cause pneumonia or infect wounds and the bloodstream.

MRSA is primarily spread through direct physical contact with a person or object carrying the bacteria.  Typically, it resides on the skin or in the nose.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MRSA is one of the most rapidly growing infections associated with health care facilities, and is responsible for more than 100,000 U.S. hospitalizations each year. 

Jeff Benoit, a registered nurse and infection control program manager was interviewed on WWLP Channel 22’s MassAppeal program, about how to prevent MRSA from spreading.  Here’s what Jeff recommends:
 
MRSA is a super bug; this is a natural bug that is on our skin every single day. We live with it. Basically, what we do, we try to prevent spreading it to other people to objects, so by doing that, we wash our hands. We spread it by simply shaking hands, rubbing up next to somebody in the supermarket and things like that.

By keeping our hands clean and making sure that we use proper protection in washing your hands is the best way to protect against it.

As a kid, we learn to turn the water on and use at least warm water and soap. Don't forget to use soap. You want to rinse your hands in warm water and then you want to lather up with soap. Make sure that you get in between your fingers, back your hands and front of your hands. What you want to do is rinse off. You want to dry your hands afterwards. Then when you turn the water off, use that towel to turn it off so you don't recontaminate and you should take about 20 to 25 seconds to do this process.

There are a lot of hand gels out there that are sufficient -- as long as there is 60 percent of alcohol in it. The thing with that is; you really need to make sure that you put enough on your hands to cover both hands and that when you are applying it, you really are using a lot of rubbing and friction just like you would with soap and water and allow it to dry.

If you have a sink, warm water and soap, that is the preferred method to washing your hands. The alcohol based products are just really a substitute because we all know in every room we work in, we don't have a sink available. But we also we need to control the spread. The alcohol-based is a great substitute. You should carry it everywhere in your car and house -- wherever you might be.

Disinfectant sprays are good for computer keyboard and the mouse and just other services, that is where the bugs live. They live in every single object. Some of them are harder to kill.

That is how we spread them by rubbing their hand on the surface and spread it to each other.

To watch the interview, click here: http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/mass_appeal/health/stopping-infections

For more on hand hygiene in VA health care settings, visit the VA Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards web site at http://www.publichealth.va.gov/flu/prevention/hand-cleaning.asp