3 North proves its prowess at protecting patient health
Wednesday, May 25 was a day fit for a staff celebration on the 3 Medicine Sub-Acute & Transitional Care Unit in Richmond Hospital.
At the celebration’s heart were two recent audits in which the unit achieved high scores.
- In the March 2016 hand hygiene audit results for VCH, the unit had the highest compliance rate of 90%.
- In April, the 3 Medicine Sub-Acute & Transitional Care team scored a perfect 100% in an audit for the pressure ulcer risk screening and skin assessments.
For their hard work, the 3 North team was treated to a pizza lunch by VCH Quality and Patient Safety.
“This takes effort and teamwork,” said Nancy Desrosiers, executive director, Quality & Patient Safety, Infection Control, who was on-hand for the lunch time celebration. “We need to do this across VCH not only to protect ourselves, but also to protect our patients and their families.”
It takes teamwork
The 3 Medicine Sub-Acute & Transitional Care Unit team frequently scores highly in the monthly hand hygiene audits. They were recently challenged to win the Hand Hygiene trophy for three-months running, which they did, with the incentive of a pizza lunch.
“Team members model high standards for hand hygiene,” said Silvia Nobrega, manager, Medicine. “You walk onto the unit and it is extremely rare to see anyone walk into or out of a patient’s room without cleaning their hands first. It is ingrained into their practice. It is the unit’s norm.”
Unit staff were thrilled that their work toward achieving hand hygiene compliance were recognized at last week’s lunchtime event.
“Hand hygiene has rubbed me the right way,” said Jeralyn Gudmundson, nursing unit assistant. “I work amongst the champions!” Added nurse Michelle Lopez-Pineda, “Thumbs up for clean hands!”
Achieving success
The following are the team’s three Top Tips to achieve success:
- Tip #1 – Team encouragement
- Tip #2 –Model behaviours
- Tip #3 – Constant reminders
To this last tip, Desrosiers added that — as a surveyor for Accreditation Canada — she has encountered organizations that have enacted something called a Code Aqua.
“Instead of saying ‘You didn’t wash your hands,’ saying Code Aqua alerts the person that they’ve forgotten a vitally important step in the patient-care process,” she said. “It’s a discrete way of alerting someone to a missed opportunity that has the powerful potential to save lives.”