Hand washing is one of the simplest, yet most effective, ways to reduce infections in the hospital. A recent study from the University of North Carolina found that one out of every 20 hospital patients develops an infection they didn’t have when admitted to the hospital, and many of those infections are caused by poor hand hygiene.
At CPMC, and at every other hospital I know, there has been a concerted effort to help staff do a better job of washing their hands. But those efforts haven’t always been as successful as we’d like, and they typically focus on the front-line caregivers, like physicians and nurses.
Now we are trying something a little different. Our infection control team has teamed up with our environmental services (EVS) staff to come up with a new and creative way to keep our patients safe. They’ve put together a rap video.
(And, yes, when I tried to access this from within CPMC I got that familiar warning message; we’re working on uploading it to our intranet site.)
I’m no aficionado of rap music (my radio dial is set semi-permanently at 104.5 for KFOG), so I can’t judge this video on its merits as rap, but I can tell you that it’s awesome as an educational tool. It conveys the message about the need for good hygiene and cleaning habits in a fun, engaging and entertaining manner.
How can you not love lyrics like “The EVS keep the hospital clean/It’s infections we prevent if you know what I mean/Bacteria on equipment, devices and me/EVS removes them to keep the room germ-free?”
Hospitals often get a bad rap for not doing a better job at infection control. We’re trying to counter that with a good rap.
Let’s clap washour hands for the team that assembled the video, including….
Karen Anderson who wrote the lyrics and makes a cameo appearance in the piece
CPMC Media Services shot and edited the video
Justin Paulk is the “Rapper”
Maria Valencia is the Housekeeper
David McReynalds is Mr. C-Diff
Reynaldo Arradaza is a Spore
Markeith Anderson is a Spore
Wanda Steagall is one of the hallway dancing managers
Walter Brown is also one of the hallway dancing managers
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November 3, 2011 at 2:50 p11
Sarah
Will you be writing a blog post about the most recent red event?
November 3, 2011 at 2:50 p11
warrenmd
I may not write a new blog post about the latest Red Event but I will certainly be sending an email to everyone at CPMC about it, explaining what happened, why and what we are doing to make sure it never happens again. Communicating with all our staff about these events is an important part of trying to create a culture where everyone who works at CPMC feels empowered to say “stop” if they see something taking place that might, in any way, endanger a patient.