Canada’s Fight and H1N1

The Public Health Agency has developed a website to disseminate information about the pandemic H1N1 flu virus in Canada. Unfortunately, the general consensus among many seems to be that the pandemic “swine flu” is over blown. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, information is key, and all of us can take basic steps to slow the spread of infection.

Furthermore, it will be interesting to see how this pandemic flu evolves during flu season… and even more interesting to be the guinea pigs for the new H1N1 flu vaccine.

The Who recommends that Health care providers be vaccinated first

This statement from the Who also concerns me:

“Since new technologies are involved in the production of some pandemic vaccines, which have not yet been extensively evaluated for their safety in certain population groups, it is very important to implement post-marketing surveillance of the highest possible quality. In addition, rapid sharing of the results of immunogenicity and post-marketing safety and effectiveness studies among the international community will be essential for allowing countries to make necessary adjustments to their vaccination policies.”

Nursing students, chime out about how you feel about all of this!

Introducing the “Just Clean Your Sink” campaign

As many in Ontario know, there is a huge push to increase hand hygiene compliance in amongst health-care workers to curb health care associated infections. What happens when the sinks we clean our hands in are actually the culprit? A recent report suggests that the sinks in a Toronto surgical intensive care unit actually harboured Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in the form of “biofilm”. Even more interesting was the finding that water splashing directly into the drain actually propelled these bacteria up to one one metre.

Read the CBC article here

Some important lessons I learned from this:

A. Probably not the best to use a patient sink to wash hands- Instead, (unless hands are visibly soiled) use the hand sanitizer immediately, and then find a designated hand wash sink outside of the patients environment. If you have to use a patient sink- perhaps it would be best to use a alcohol based hand sanitizer afterwards (ask infection control)

B. Use that alcohol sanitizer at point of care- before you begin care! You can pick something up in the short distance from the door to the bed.

C. Don’t prepare dressings on the countertop next to a sink and if gloves are sitting next to a sink… they are likely contaminated

D. Think about what gets dumped down a patient sink….. urinals (patients may not see a problem with this) and basins come to mind. Yuk!

Further Reading:

• Outbreak of Multidrug-Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa Colonization and Infection Secondary to Imperfect Intensive Care Unit Room Design (Abstract)
• Prevention of irritant contact dermatitis among health care workers by using evidence-based hand hygiene practices: a review.
• Hand Hygiene Fact Sheet for Health Care settings (PIDAC)