2. In order to communicate what is especially important about the design of this product, I would stress the importance of hand hygiene compliance and it’s role in infection prevention in the hospital. I would reinforce this with evidence based research and statistics. While one of the constraints in this design may be cost, I would emphasize that the cost of these units pales in comparison to the cost of hospital acquired infections. I would stress that the convenience in respect to the location of this object would greatly improve compliance in a high paced, busy environment.
3. This hand sanitizer unit is an automatic hands free system designed to dispense a pre-measured amount of hand sanitizer with each use. The touch free technology reduces cross contamination, while the one dose application helps control cost. The hand sanitizer included with this product kills over 99.99% of germs when used as directed.
This picture represents a nurse utilizing the hands free system outside of a patient’s room.
This picture is a powerful representation of the effectiveness of using hand sanitizer despite it’s ease of use.
This is a picture of the hand sanitizer units outside of every patient room.
This picture helps to put in perspective how easy “foaming in and foaming out” can be and is one of the best defenses in preventing infection.
This picture provides instructions on how to properly use hand sanitizer.
This photo shows how easy it is to transmit germs from surfaces to hands.
5. Three objects that would be particularly useful for my audience to touch and hold would be the actual hand sanitizer product, a sheet with statistics in regard to hand sanitizer effectiveness, and a blood pressure cuff with the product Glo-germ on it. Allowing my audience to sample the hand sanitizer as well as using the unit itself would allow members of the audience to see first hand how easy and efficient this product is. Providing a sheet with statistics on the effectiveness of hand sanitizer would be a great way to provide the audience with something they could read over and take home. Glo germ is a product that can be used to demonstrate the importance of hand hygiene, and how easy it is to pick up germs on our hands from medical equipment. By applying Glo germ on a blood pressure cuff and allowing the audience to hold the blood pressure cuff, a black light would reveal the cross contamination that occurs when handling medical equipment with our hands.
6. Since nurses spend the most time with patients providing direct care as stated in the article “At Bat: Nurses Step up to the Design Plate”, nurses understand first hand how important it is to find a quick and efficient way to prevent infection. As nurses, we have the power to create awareness of the need to increase hand hygiene compliance. Additionally, nurses should become familiar with the process of design in order to improve patient care while avoiding any extra costs (Eagle, 2016).