Protecting Your Patients, Colleagues, Family, and Yourself From Infection: First Wash

...when nurses do practice hand washing, or the more recently dubbed “hand hygiene,” we need to get it right. “Nurses Did Not Wash Hands, Blamed for Deaths of 90 British Patients”—So blazed the headline at FoxNews.com just a few months ago, citing a newly released investigative report from Britain’s Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection related to outbreaks of Clostridium difficile infection in 2 of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) Trusts located in southern England. The report noted that over an approximately 2 1/2-year period between April 2004 and September 2006, C difficile was “definitely or probably the main cause of death” in 90 of the 345 total patient deaths, a definite contributing factor in 124 and a probable factor in 55 deaths. Immediately following that inflammatory headline, the first 3 sentences continued fanning these accusatory flames: