dispatches from the new world of work

Purell Time (Again)!

Fall, of course, is officially here. FluTime ain't that far away. While at my local/Boston pharmacy (a GREAT "small company," by the way—Gary Drug on Charles Street), I bought my Fall-Winter supply of PURELL. It's my favorite, easy-to-find anti-bacterial hand wipe.

Health Rule #1: WASH YOUR HANDS! I've been (recently) turned into a gen-u-ine fanatic. Consider:

"If God spoke to me by saying, 'Mark, you're down to your last three words: What would you want to say to your fellow humans that would make the most positive impact?' It would be a close call between 'Love Thy Neighbor' and 'Wash Your Hands.' A close third would be 'Move, Move, Move.'"—Mark Pettus, M.D., The Savvy Patient

"The most important thing you can do to keep from getting sick is to wash your hands."—CDC/National Center for Infectious Diseases

Purell has 62% alcohol, which serves my purposes pretty well—though 80% or more is recommended. Of course in "speech world" I shake hundreds of hands—but that's not the point. If you don't shake a hand a week this matters—a lot.

Tom Peters posted this on 09/22/06.

Comments

Quick and fleetig visit - Extract from something I wrote earlier this week: Closing hospitals makes great sense - they are dangerous and unhealthy places to be in. If you think I am exaggerating or using emotive language about the dangers of being in hospital as a patient read this and reflect: â€˜It is estimated that around 10 per cent (900,000) of patients admitted to NHS hospitals have experienced a patient safety incident, and that up to half of these incidents could have been prevented. Furthermore, it is estimated that 72,000 of these incidents may contribute to the death of patients.â€™ Source: The Health Foundation http://www.health.org.uk/ourawards/service/index.cfm?id=41

Posted by Trevor Gay at September 22, 2006 5:40 PM

Yes, yes, everyone should wash their hands often and well!!! (15 SECONDS of scrubbing - count it out, its longer than you think)

Curtis V,Cairncross S (2003) Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review. Lancet Infect Dis. 2003 May;3(5):275-81.

Abstract: "We set out to determine the impact of washing hands with soap on the risk of diarrhoeal diseases in the community with a systematic review with random effects meta-analysis. Our data sources were studies linking handwashing with diarrhoeal diseases. Seven intervention studies, six case-control, two cross-sectional, and two cohort studies were located from electronic databases, hand searching, and the authors' collections. The pooled relative risk of diarrhoeal disease associated with not washing hands from the intervention trials was 1.88 (95% CI 1.31-2.68), implying that handwashing could reduce diarrhoea risk by 47%. When all studies, when only those of high quality, and when only those studies specifically mentioning soap were pooled, risk reduction ranged from 42-44%. The risks of severe intestinal infections and of shigellosis were associated with reductions of 48% and 59%, respectively. In the absence of adequate mortality studies, we extrapolate the potential number of diarrhoea deaths that could be averted by handwashing at about a million (1.1 million, lower estimate 0.5 million, upper estimate 1.4 million). Results may be affected by the poor quality of many of the studies and may be inflated by publication bias. On current evidence, washing hands with soap can reduce the risk of diarrhoeal diseases by 42-47% and interventions to promote handwashing might save a million lives. More and better-designed trials are needed to measure the impact of washing hands on diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections in developing countries."

http://www.fluwikie.com/pmwiki.php?n=Consequences.PersonalHygiene

Everyone should wash their hands well before they eat, particularly in public settings, yet few do. Food establishments, fast and sitdown, should be encouraged (customer demand?) to provide packaged alcohol wipes. School cafeterias should have handwashing stations (or alcohol-based hand rubs) at the head of the food lines. Most, if not all, public toilet facilities should be converted to automatic no-touch controls so that more people would wash their hands without fear of contacting something or at least not touch surfaces if they don't. These changes and the simple procedure of washing hands would probably prevent more lost work days than all the shots and pills combined. Most people don't realize that most common agents causing acute enteric and respiratory infections are readily transmitted by hands and that is probably the most prevalent transmission route.

Posted by JMG at September 22, 2006 9:33 PM

SEATTLE greetings ... 100 times the germs at desk locale vs. kitchen! Perhaps have a ready bottle of 32 oz. alcohol [$1] & paper towels most places.

Trevor - time to RE-Imagine Radically NHS ... some Employees begging to leave - decades of Black Dog ridden, smoke & wine-a-holics! :>]

Posted by sean at September 24, 2006 11:15 AM

Hi Sean I agree BUT .... Many NHS managers have never even heard of TP never mind any of his books! ... A sad but true statement - a long way to go yet. Sorry to mention it but I assume America suffering Ryder Cup Blues??? :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at September 24, 2006 7:07 PM

Tom, it is worth mentioning that effective handwashing (according to CDC and others)includes vigorous lathering of the hands for 20 seconds or longer--outside the stream of water (with water temp. of 110 F or higher). It is also important not to re-contaminate by using a previously soiled cloth towel to dry the washed hands. Sanitizers are good, but really effective only after proper handwashing.

Posted by Steve Dragoo at September 25, 2006 7:50 AM

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USA historically is used to the Ryder BLUES! NFL dominates all media now - Seattle 3-0.

Posted by sean at September 25, 2006 8:08 AM

Check out this article from the New York Times Magazine:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24wwln_freak.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=30449513da7fee62&ex=1316750400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Sounds like even the professionals need prodding about this very important habit.

cheap india generic viagra online Posted by Shelley (Dolley) at September 25, 2006 9:53 AM

To see the magnitued of this problem, put "handwashing compliance" into PubMed (the National Library of Medicine literature database) and read the abstracts. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

Changing human behaviour remains a huge problem. Note in one of the abstracts that the biggest influencer is the surrounding public expectation of handwashing. Probably the biggest impact on this aspect of hygiene was the arrival of HIV-AIDS on the scene. Suddenly, healthcare workers realized they could contract a fatal disease from patients who were showing no outward signs of the disease. Hence, they had to act as though all were infected rather than just taking precautions with those known to have a deadly infectious disease. cheap viagra overnight shipping

Posted by JMG at September 25, 2006 11:43 AM