Hospitals are the place you go when you get sick. Unfortunately, that means a healthcare facility is one of the places where you can catch disease most easily. Administrators and staffers try their best to make every facility as safe and sanitary as can be, and they do a great job. But there is one thing that they can't control; making people wash their hands. Whenever a visitor uses the bathroom, or eats in the cafeteria, or sneezes or coughs into their hands, they get germs on their hands. It is vital that people in healthcare facilities keep their hands clean while they're within the bounds of the facility, because it would be such a huge boost toward a more sanitary building. Wash your hands signs are all over hospitals, as they should be, as a reminder to patrons and visitors that they have to be responsible with germs when they're in a hospital (or anywhere, really).

Hand Washing Signs

If every visitor to a hospital merely made the effort to thoroughly wash their hands during bathroom visits, the effects could be enormous. There would be less communicable diseases passed back and forth between patrons, less risk of infection for patients with serious problems, and just less risk in all areas of health care at the hospital. That's why so many healthcare facilities invest in plenty of handwashing signs. They are effective in reminding people to do something that would aid both them and their fellow visitors. They're also important for people who actually work at the healthcare facility, for whom it is strict policy to always wash their hands thoroughly. Handwashing signs are a reminder not only to literally wash your hands, but also a reminder of what not washing your hands could entail. There are two main types of handwashing signs, one for visitors and patients, and one for workers and administrators at the facility.

Maybe the most common wash your hand signs are the ones meant for employees. You don't just see these handwashing signs in hospitals. You also see them in restaurants, hotels - service oriented places where there is a lot of contact between guests and workers, or workers and the food or services offered to guests. But they are extremely important for healthcare facilities. When nurses and doctors don't wash their hands, they proceed to touch and interact with dozens of people with plenty of germs and communicable diseases. Washing their hands reduces the likelihood that they will spread disease from patient to patient, or from patient to visitor. The best type of sign for this dilemma is one that combines a plain written command with a pictorial illustration that catches the eye.

These types of wash your hand signs are more effective because they work on more than one level and they attract the eye. They remind, they illustrate, and they chide if need be. A popular wash your hands sign reads: "Employees must wash hands before returning to work." In between the two parts of the sentence, there is an illustration of two hands washing each other with bubbly soap. So the sign works on many levels. It reminds employees of their responsibility not only to their patients but to their employers. It gets the attention of non-employees as well. It also lays out a clear rule; that without handwashing, the person may not return to work. This is serious enough to convince many to do it, even if they feel they don't need to. Also, the picture draws attention and keeps the sign from being too boring or bureaucratic, and that is a big plus for employees.

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It is absolutely essential that a hospital remain sterile and clean. It is even more important that the people working in the hospital are as clean as possible. Hands are by far the easiest way for germs to spread. Having a good hand washing policy can help eradicate the spread of disease or germs throughout a hospital. Having hand washing signs placed around the hospital helps make everyone aware of the importance of good hygiene. Because of all the infected and sick people in a hospital, there is a higher risk of contracting an illness when you are there. For this reason, it is extremely important that patients, doctors, and visitors wash their hands regularly when at the facility. MRSA is one of the scariest infections you can contract during your stay in a hospital. It is also one of the infections that is the cause of rising health care costs and sometimes law suits after it is contracted. Hand washing has been found to cut down on all infection rates in the hospital, including some of the worst like MRSA.

Why Hand Washing is Important in a Hospital?
Washing your hands is important in any situation, but it is more important when you are surrounded by sick people. Hospitals are essentially a hotbed for infection and disease. By completing a simple task like washing your hands, you can save yourself and others from catching illnesses. Having hand washing signs posted around all sinks and bathrooms helps to make sure that every ones hands are washed and germ free. People come to hospitals to be cured and feel better. It's important that this continues to happen. If people don't have good hygiene and maintain sterile environments, hospitals will no longer be able to heal people. Washing hands in hospitals is so important that the Center for Disease Control releases guidelines and recommendations for hand hygiene in health care settings. Hand washing can keep the nation's health care bill down as well. In 2009, the Joint Committee unveiled a pilot project that was focused on hand washing in eight large health care facilities. The Committee thought that close attention to this simple hygiene step could reduce the nation's health care costs by billions. Hand washing signs were a part of the plan to keep doctors and nurses germ free. During this study hospitals discovered that health care providers were only washing their hands half of the time they entered or exited patients room. The Center for Disease Control estimates that a shocking 1.7 million infection cases are reported a year from a hospital, and 99,000 of those patients die from the contracted disease. The Center for Disease Control also estimates that the cost of treating these patients is close to $20 billion per year. That's a lot to pay for a problem that could possibly be fixed by hand washing signs. Many other studies have been conducted concerning hand washing in health care facilities with one common outcome. The infection rate will always decrease as the hand washing rate increases.

Here is some more information about hand washing signs.