Handwashing program "Helps Us Help You"

The first of September 2008 marked the beginning of the Help Us Help You campaign at Pioneer Memorial Hospital. The goal of the program is to reduce the number of hospital-acquired infections.

“PMH has a very low rate of these infections,” nurse Carolyn Kessel, ICU clinical coordinator and infection control officer said. “Currently, we have next to none. There was only one such infection in the second quarter of 2008.”

But Kessel and the caregiving team at PMH are working to eliminate hospital-acquired infections altogether.

It is estimated that across the United States, during care for a patient in the hospital, on average only about 50 percent of the opportunities to wash hands are used. “We want to enlist our patients and their visitors to ask us, ‘Have you washed your hands?’ As simple as it seems, hand washing is the number one strategy to fight infection,” Kessel said.

A similar program was instituted in Washington State about five years ago, and Mountain View Hospital in Madras began a hand-washing program in 2007.

To draw attention to the program, Kessel has placed a poster in each patient care room, and there is information about the program in all admission packets for patients. She will monitor infection rates in the medical-surgical unit, the intensive care unit, the family birthing center and in the emergency department. In addition to nursing staff, Kessel has enlisted caregivers in the laboratory and radiology departments in the hand-washing program.

“Some people have wondered if it is rude to ask health care workers and visitors to wash or sanitize their hands. It is absolutely not!” Kessel said. “Our caregivers and visitors are invested in your care, and want you to get better as soon as possible. We expect our patients to ask, so please do not be shy.

“Hospital-acquired infections are avoidable. We want to do all we can to make people feel safe in the hospital.”

To contact Carolyn Kessel for more information about the Help Us Help You program at Pioneer Memorial Hospital , call 541-447-6254.