Executive Summary

Posted by Melda Research on March 29th, 2019

I am a registered nursing working on the orthopedic floor in Barnabas Health. Recent survey done at the hospital indicates that the rates of health care-associated infection are on the increase at the facility, as well as the rate of spread of infections. The main cause of health care-associated infection is a lack of hand washing practices or poor hand washing practices. It is necessary for every nurse or healthcare professional to wash his or her hands before and after every medical procedure. Similarly, patients should adapt to the routine of washing hands frequently especially after visiting the toilets. Hand washing removes the pathogens from the hands thus helping in reducing the spread of diseases. Several studies have indicated that hand washing can significantly reduce the number of healthcare-associated infection. Thus, hand washing is the primary method of preventing the spread of diseases in our wards. We would be complying with the world health organization by adopting the culture of hand washing in our hospitals and this would greatly reduce the spread of diseases in the hospital wards.

The purpose of the project:

My project dubbed `wash hands to save lives’ is a program that addresses some of the challenges that may hinder making hand washing a culture on the orthopedic floor in Barnabas health. The project will provide hand washing apparatus at strategic locations on the orthopedic floor with the aim of boosting the culture of hand washing within the wards on this floor. The project will erect hand washing stands at thedoor of everyward to ensure that every nurse or patient have quick and easy access to a hand washing stand before and after entering into any ward. The adoption of the culture of hand washing would reduce the rate of disease spread significantly as well as the rate of health care related infections.

The target population:

The project targets the nurses and other health care professional who work on the orthopedic floor in Barnabas health together with the patients admitted to the wards of this floor. However, iftheproject is successful in achieving its initialgoals of makingthehandwashing a culture on thefloor to reducespread of diseases, we would expandtheprogram to otherfloors of thehealthfacility.

The benefits of the program:

Washing hands is the primary measure to prevent the spread of diseases as well reducing the rates of health care based infections within any health facility. This project will make hand washing apparatus available in convenience and strategic locations to boost the culture hand washing among the nurses, as well as the patients. The improvement in hand washing will significantly reduce the spread of diseases in the wards hence ensuring the safety of the patients. The reduction in the rate of the spread of these infections will not only ensure the safety of patients but will also reduce the chances of nurses being infected with diseases as they provide their health care services. The initiative will also reduce the costs the health facility incurs in treatment of secondary infections among the patients admitted to the hospital. Similarly, the health facility might find itself in legal tussles relating healthcare associated infections. Therefore, the project will in a way save the hospital some money as well as helping the facility maintain its untarnished reputation of not having been sued for exposing its patients to secondary infections.

Budget justification:

In order to implement the project, we will a number of materials. The purpose of the project is to provide the hand washing apparatus in specific locations. Currently, the hand washing venues are located in washrooms and other sinks scattered all over the facility. However, to provide a hand washing stand for every ward, we will need a hand washing dispenser for every ward. Currently, we have about 10 wards on the orthopedic floor. This implies that we will require 10 hand washing dispenser. A water dispenser that has all the desired qualities and that is capable of serving a whole ward costs about four hundred dollars. This means that to acquire the ten hand washing water dispensers we will require about four thousand dollars. In additionthecost of buyingthewaterdispensers, we will requiresome fifty dollarsforinstallation of thesedispensersmakingthetotalcost of acquiringandinstallation of thehandwashingwaterdispensers to be about 4,500 dollars. This cost will only be met at the initial stages of the project. However, we will need to meet some recurrent costs such as buying soaps and other disinfectants and hand drying towels. These recurrent expenses will cost us about 300 dollars every month. We will not be required to buy water since it plenty within the premises. Therefore, the initial cost of the project is 4,800 dollars. And a recurrent cost of 300 dollars every month.

Project evaluation:

To evaluate the performance of the project, we will assess the rate of spread of infectious diseases and the rate of health care related infections in the ten wards before the implementation of the project. Then, we will determine the rate of the spread of the infectious diseases and the rate of health care associated infection in these wards after a period of time may be one year. Then we will compare the rate of these infections before the implementation of the program and after the implementation of the program. A reduction in the spread of these diseases would be an indication that the program is successful in achieving its objectives of reducing spread of diseases and health care related infection. If the infection and the spreads rates did not change or they tend to increase, then one can conclude that the project is a failure as it has achieved its objectives.

Feedback:

1. The proposal would definitely be approved if proposed formally.

2. The strengths of the proposal are that you have discussed the current situation and the need to have a change to adopt the culture of hand washing. The other strength is that you have clearly identified the requirements of the project and their expected cost. However, the proposal has a weakness since you have not stated who are to implement the project to who the progress would be reported to.

References:

Cox, J. L Simpson, M. D., Letts, W., & Cavanagh, H. A. (2014), Putting it into Practice: Infection controlprofessionals' perspectives on earlycareernursinggraduates' microbiology andinfectioncontrolknowledgeandpractice:Contemporary Nurse: A Journal For The Australian Nursing Profession, 4983-92. doi:10.5172/conu.2014.49.83

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in best nursing essay writers. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from custom nursing papers.