PICOT Question Sheila Bravo, RN Grand Canyon University Infection control is one of the most important factors related to lowering the amount of Hospital Acquired Infections. HAI’s are the reason for most readmissions and mortality rates. I believe if infection control employees would set up passive visual stimuli around the wash sinks and at the surgical doors, then more employees would stop and think if they washed appropriately before entering the room. Surgical rooms can have high mortality rates due to infection with a total joint, a regular incision and with laparoscopic procedures. Making sure that we follow through with hand hygiene with patient care is so important not only for our patients but also for ourselves as staff. When proper hand hygiene is not done, we can easily pass infection and germs to our next patient. This is where hospital acquired infections take place. I believe that if we start in the O.R. with proper hand hygiene, the patients will either transfer out from PACU or go home with a better rate of success for healing. Evidence based practice shows that with proper hand hygiene, patients are less likely to acquire an infection and have better healing rates and healing time. If a patient must be readmitted for infection, the healing process is halted and other procedures and medications are involved in order for the patient to continue to recovery. Also, with readmission for infection due to MRSA or MSSA, patients have a high mortality rate along with other problems that can arise. In recent studies, passive visual stimuli have shown to greatly increase proper hand hygiene and cut down on HAI’s that occur in the O.R. I believe if infection control champions we were to put up some visual stimuli in the O.R. and keep them up for six months, we would see a decrease in the rate of infection. Patient care can be then be focused on recovery rate rather than worrying about infections that may have been acquired. Patient care needs to focus on getting the patient up and mobile, eating and healing for discharge and this is planned from admission in to the O.R. as well as any other unit of the hospital. Nurses are taught that hand hygiene is the most important rule to infection control. With the rise of HAI’s nurses need to get back to the basics and remember that by simply washing their hands either with soap and water, alcohol based hand rub or chlorhexidine washes, we can stop the transmission very quickly so that our patients do not have to suffer with problems after surgery. P (patient population) – Patients in the Operating Room I (intervention) – passive visual stimuli C (comparison intervention) – no visual stimuli versus visual stimuli, proper handwashing care O (outcome) – enhancing compliance with proper hand hygiene T (time) – six months PICOT Question: Would patients admitted in the Surgical Department, have less of a chance of an HAI’s, if passive visual stimuli for medical personnel were posted and would it enhance compliance with proper hygiene within 6 months’ time?