Moving towards interventional patient hygiene
In an effort to drive critical care nursing towards
a renewed focus on identifying, implementing and
maintaining quality patient hygiene measures, Vollman et al.5 developed the ‘‘interventional patient
hygiene’’ conceptual framework. Interventional
patient hygiene is defined as a nursing action
plan that is focussed on fortifying a patient’s
host defences using evidence-based care including
oral hygiene, skin cleansing and incontinence
management5. The interventional patient hygiene
model targets evidence-based practice interventions
for critically ill patients to drive nurses’
accountability for fundamental patient care activities.
Such practice interventions are a prime
opportunity to demonstrate the impact of nursing
care on improving patient outcomes or nursesensitive
patient outcomes. Vollman et al.5 argue
that the principles of quality patient care through
the maintenance of quality patient hygiene initiatives
is not new it has simply been overshadowed
by technology and cost containment measures.
Given the findings from this study, it is timely
to reconceptualise patient hygiene measure in
terms of nursing interventions to improve patient
outcomes