Coastal Breaks Down the Hindrances to Handwashing

Virginia Beach, VA, June 5, 2009 — Amidst the swine flu outbreak and the occurrence of 1.7 million infections among patients every year, Coastal HealthTrain adds one more hand hygiene program, Hand Hygiene: The Best Medicine, to an already comprehensive collection on the subject.

The new program is not just about handwashing procedures. It also explains why healthcare professionals don’t wash or decontaminate hands and what facilities can do to reverse this unfortunate this trend.
 
Hand Hygiene: The Best Medicine walks through some of the legitimate obstacles, complicated challenges and dangerous misconceptions that interfere with proper hand hygiene. It covers proper hand hygiene guidelines and explores the prevention of errors that are caused by acting without considering the consequences.
 
The program reviews the step-by-step and CDC-approved handwashing process and cites the instances when it is necessary. It discusses key facts on two different methods of hand decontamination – washing with soap and water and using alcohol-based hand rubs.
 
Hand Hygiene: The Best Medicine explores why many healthcare professionals skip handwashing altogether, even if they agree that it is a critical infection-control practice. It covers several reasons ranging from logistical realities and the hustle-and-bustle of the healthcare industry to lack of knowledge and concentration, the routine nature of certain duties and misconceptions on hand hygiene.
 
Handwashing is a simple thing and it’s the best way to prevent the spread of infection and illness. By raising awareness of these barriers, Hand Hygiene: The Best Medicine points to appropriate intervention measures and promotes more frequent handwashing for lower infection rates in your facility.
 
This program is available via Coastal’s blended learning solutions, which include multiple delivery formats to address complex training requirements, organizational culture, logistical needs, a range of budgets and learning capabilities. For more information about Coastal Training Technologies or Hand Hygiene: The Best Medicine, call 800-729-4325, visit www.coastalhealth.com or email sales@coastal.com.

Coastal Training Technologies Corp. is one of the world’s leading publishers of safety, industrial skills and employee development training programs for healthcare, business, industry, government and education. Since 1984, more than 250,000 training professionals have relied on Coastal’s award-winning products to enrich the lives of more than 75 million employees worldwide.