How to Wash the Hands for Nursing Students

Hand washing is one of the most basic measures to ensure patient safety and prevent the spread of infection in hospitals, so it makes sense that nurses would do a good job with hand hygiene. Not so, according to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI): Health-care workers actually comply with hand hygiene procedure less than half of the time. However, nursing students who follow clear and explicit hand-washing guidelines from The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will learn good hand hygiene practices. There are separate procedures for washing with soap and water, using alcohol-based hand sanitizers, and scrubbing before entering a sterile environment like the operating room.

Things You'll Need

• Soap
• Warm running water
• Alcohol-based hand sanitizer
• Sterile scrub brush

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Instructions

• 1

  Use soap and running water for routine hand washing. According to the CDC, you should wet your hands completely, using warm, clean, running water when it's available.

• 2

  Rub your hands together. Focus on making a good lather and scrubbing all finger and hand surfaces equally.

• 3

  Keep rubbing for 15 to 20 seconds. You can time yourself by humming the Happy Birthday song twice through at a normal speed. Get into the habit of humming it until you've established a comfortable routine that spans at least 15 seconds.

• 4

  Rinse your hands well. Again, you should use warm running water when possible.

• 5

  Dry your hands. Use an air dryer or paper towel, and use the paper towel to turn off the faucet if you can, so you don't pick up germs from the wet fixtures.

• 6

  Use alcohol-based hand sanitizers as a second option. These products are fast-acting and greatly reduce the microorganisms on your hands. Apply the sanitizer to the palm of one hand, rub your hands together, and keep rubbing all hand and finger surfaces until your hands are completely dry.

• 7

  Follow facility-specific procedures for sterile scrubs. At the University of Texas Medical Branch, for example, nurses entering the operating room have to use a sterile scrub brush to complete a five-minute anatomical scrub of their hands and arms up to two inches above the elbow. Their orientation manual outlines a specific sequence for scrubbing all hand and arm surfaces.