Mrs. Mary-Clare Smith1, Mrs. Kathryn Castelletto1, Dr Elyce Green1, Mrs. Natalie Ellis1, Associate Professor Thiru Vanniasinkam1
1MLHD, Wagga, Australia
Biography:
Mary-Clare Smith has worked as a Registered Nurse for the past 28 years and during the past 5 years has been the lead infection prevention and control clinical nurse consultant for Murrumbidgee Local health district, covering 31 facilities. Mary-Clare has a strong interest in nursing education and valuing the human aspect of staff and patients with infection prevention. Mary-Clare was one of seven applicants across Australia successful in being awarded a National Dementia Fellowship with Flinders University for her dementia support project "Crossing the Bridges together", aimed at empowering families to support their family member with Alzheimer's disease.
Abstract:
Introduction
The COVID Pandemic highlighted to many HealthCare Staff the importance of working Bare Below the Elbows in the HealthCare setting and it's link to decreasing transmission of infection, due to the fear of contracting COVID.
Method
A collaboration was initiated by the Murrumbidgee Local Health District Infection Prevention and Control Clinical Nurse Consultant to work together with colleagues at the Three River Department of Rural Health and Charles Sturt University, as a means of designing a Bare Below the elbows poster, that outlined the key features of being Bare Below the Elbows, ensuring it was bright and easy to follow in the clinical setting to reinforce the importance of this practice in decreasing the risk of infection transmission.
Result
Whilst the poster has allowed a key aspect of infection prevention to be promoted easily, further study is required to assess the effectiveness of this poster in achieving a decrease in infection rates, therefore a proposed study will be targeted at qualitative research study to using a pre and post feedback of level of staff engagement to determine positive influence amongst staff knowledge and adherence to this practice.
Conclusion
The study aims to determine if practice amongst healthcare staff in being bare Below the elbows in the clinical setting correlates with improved hand hygiene rates and improved attitudes by staff towards infection prevention in the clinical setting.