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Workplace Safety: Strengthening Healthy Habits in Healthcare Facilities

by Yolando B. Adams

Being adequately equipped while performing your chores is vital to maximize your productivity and work efficiency. It is also essential to avoid unnecessary injuries, risks, and dangers while you go about with your daily activities.

Performing a surgical scrub is one of the most critical techniques that every qualified surgeon must know. The same practice goes along for various settings, including the medical and dental fields. This article will discuss all surgical scrubs and their importance to the dental field.

Workplace Safety

Surgical Scrub: An Overview

A surgical scrub, also known as a hand scrub, is a clinical practice that functions as part of a protective procedure. Aside from pure necessities such as face masks, safety eyewear, and other protective equipment, the hand scrub is essential to prevent microbial contamination during dental surgical procedures.

Antimicrobial capacity

If workplace staff engage in proper hand hygiene using an ideal agent, necessary broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against pathogens should be possible. It will work rapidly and reduce the chances of bacteria from spreading.

Safety

The ideal agent should keep track of low bacterial count even under the gloves. Agents should be non-sensitizing and non-irritating, making them suitable for every professional. This type is safe to use and would not damage the skin.

Acceptance

If the agent is not acceptable by many health care workers, there will be a failure to serve and support its function. It is essential to consider using an agent that will be used and accepted by its users.

Importance of Hand Scrubbing

Our hands are the primary tools for our activities, especially within the healthcare practice. It is responsible for feeling, curing, and diagnosing and is often comes into contact with every patient that needs help. However, our hands can also be a portal for diseases and can cause infections to spread and travel across different locations.

While proper handwashing can sometimes control the spread and transmission of unnecessary nosocomial infection, it is still necessary to increase precaution. Hand scrub is one of the best decontamination practices to improve hand hygiene. Several organizations have made hand scrub a universal practice to prevent pathogens, bacteria, viruses, and other diseases.

There are other purposes of surgical hand scrub, too. It helps remove unnecessary debris and underlying microorganisms that are often hiding under your nails, hands, and forearms.

Proper Hand Hygiene Technique

When talking about hand hygiene, it’s not just all hand scrubs and washing. To increase sterility, you should also consider including your arms when scrubbing. Before entering a surgery room, be sure to prep yourself by thoroughly washing your hands, starting from a clean portion to a less clean place. It means you need to start with your hands up to your arms, and never vice versa. This method is a systematic approach to ensure proper and efficient technique.

There are two possible methods for a hand scrub. The first one is called the numbered stroke method. This technique has a specific brushstroke count for fingers, palms, back of the hands, and arms. The second method is an alternative method called timed scrub. With the timed method, the scrubbing should be in a minimum of three minutes and last depending on the protocol.

Other Practices After a Successful Hand Scrub

Air Filtration

Airflow in surgical units and operating rooms must be optimal to protect the medical staff from anesthetic gas exposure. More specifically, infection management for the patient’s welfare. Be sure to check the airflow before you enter the premises.

In the case of an inconsistent filter, air sterilization systems are large machinery for which you need qualified industrial electrical contractors. This repair work is often a significant undertaking that requires professional support.

Gowning

After performing hand hygiene routines, you must proceed to gowning. You can carefully place your hands inside the armholes, guiding your arms through the sleeves. You need to grasp the gown firmly and avoid touching the table.

Gloving

To wear your gloves, you should lay your palms down and over the cuff of your gown. The fingers of the glove should face towards your body. You should work through your gown sleeve and take a grasp of the glove cuff so it is over the open sleeve cuff. Don’t forget to unroll the gloves’ cuffs so that they will cover the sleeves.

Final Thoughts 

Regardless of the agent used or which methods of scrubbing you prefer, the ultimate goal for surgical scrub is hand hygiene. An effective surgical scrub is potent for infection prevention within operating rooms and other health facilities.

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