“I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession.”
This excerpt comes from the Florence Nightingale Pledge, which is often read at graduation/pinning ceremonies for nurses. From the beginning of nursing school and every day since, you’re reminded of your power to maintain and elevate the standard of your profession through patient safety — especially through infection prevention and control.
Infection prevention and control is one of the first subjects covered in nursing school, yet its key concepts are often overlooked or forgotten. No matter how long you’ve been a nurse, it’s vital to remember that infection prevention practices help:
- Prevent the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which can have serious consequences for vulnerable patients
- Protect yourself and your colleagues from exposure to pathogens
- Prevent antimicrobial resistance through the overuse and misuse of antibiotics
- Ensure compliance with infection prevention regulations and in the monitoring and reporting of infections
Infection prevention and control doesn’t only benefit your patients, it benefits you. And there has never been a better time to revisit this topic. You most likely know it, but do you do it?
In this 10 day challenge, we’re putting a laser focus on infection prevention. By prioritizing the everyday actions that help keep you and your patients safe, you truly will be elevating the standard of your nursing practice.
Ready to start? Let’s go! Join us by clicking "Yes," under "Ready to Join?" and invite a #healthynurse you know or share the challenge on your social media by clicking the links on this page.
This challenge begins on June 19!
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How are you doing in the challenge?
This is so important. You can take someone's life by being careless or save someone's life by being cautious.
Glad to see incivility included in this topic and discussion in addition to the sometimes more noticeable bullying & violence.
On most surveys evaluating stress they score major life events that hopefully occur infrequently like moving, death in family, changing jobs etc. but they also cover the smaller repeated daily hassles like commute traffic, spilling coffee, or missing lunch.
The daily irritants or hassles become almost ignored as we focus on just getting through the day but the impact of them on our stress response is a steady climb upwards if we don't have the ability to reset.
Dealing with incivility is a frequent stressor that not only impacts our health but also self esteem, self confidence and self worth. It's impact can be devastating especially when coming from those we should be able to look towards for support and guidance. Excusing it away or repeated apologies afterwards that do not appear authentic help to create an atmosphere of forced tolerance in the workplace & helps create a toxic environment.
It can also be hard to handle when coming from members of the public in a way to halt it without escalating it especially if the policies on what is and is not acceptable fluctuate depending on the day and staff on duty.
All forms - bullying, violence and incivility are equally unacceptable.