Transcription:

Scott Webb: We've learned a lot about the importance of hand hygiene in preventing the spread of colds, flu and COVID over the past couple of years. Joining me today to remind us all how to wash our hands and just generally prevent the spread of germs and viruses are infectious disease specialist, Dr. Mahendra Poudel, and the infection prevention manager at SVMHS, Melissa Deen.

This is Ask The Experts, a podcast from Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. I'm Scott Webb. So, it's great to have you both on again. It's been a while since I've spoken to with both of you, Dr. Poudel, definitely recently. But Melissa, great to have you here as well. And I'm going to direct the first one to you. What's the correct way to wash our hands? It feels weird to have to ask. But it feels like over the last couple of years maybe there's been some misinformation, disinformation, but from an expert here, what's the best way to do that?

Melissa Deen: Soap and water, and regular soap. Just soap and water, and then good scrubbing for 15 to 20 seconds in between your fingers, top and bottom of your hands, the center of your palm, tips of your fingers, nail beds. Index finger and thumb s get missed a lot. And so, you just kind of work that soap and work that magic for a good 20 seconds and rinse really well.

Scott Webb: Yeah. Dr. Poudel, Melissa said there just to use regular old soap, soap is fine. So, during the last couple of years, I've invested a lot of money in antibacterial soap. Wondering what your thoughts are on that. Also, does it matter liquid versus bar soap? We know to use warm water. But does how much I spend, how much we spend on soap, does that matter? Or is regular old soap good enough?

Dr. Mahendra Poudel: I think it doesn't really matter, as long as you have a soap, you have running water and you really rinse your hands and put some soap of any kind to lather and scrub enough. Usually, we say 15 to 20 seconds. And I remind myself to sing the Happy Birthday song, so that's about 15 to 20 seconds to wash your hands. And, you know, really antibacterial soaps are not any better than regular bar soaps. So the FDA actually has put out multiple things about it that just a regular bar soap is as good as an antibacterial soap. And a lot of times, antibacterial soaps may actually be harmful, because, you know, they have some kind of chemicals that can harm and irritate your skin, especially somebody who has a soft skin. So, best thing is regular soap and running water.

Scott Webb: Yeah. Running water, warm water, regular soap will do, sing the Happy Birthday song. I'm with you. It's so good to have the experts on. Melissa, I was mentioning to you before we got rolling here that oftentimes when I'm in the washroom, I've washed my hands and then I stand there and I stare at the paper towels or the jet dryer, you know, and I'm never sure which one is the either most effective in drying my hands, but mainly about the spreading of germs and sort of limiting the spread. So from your perspective, which is best?

Melissa Deen: Paper towels. Paper towels create better ability to dry the hands effectively. What we've found, and there's been studies with the blowers, is that it if you don't wash your hands effectively, it disperses bacteria. So especially those new fancy ones from a manufacturer from the UK did these where you could drop your hands in and then they would blow them dry. There are actually studies found that it was dispersing bacteria in that way. The old-fashioned ones from when I was a kid that you punched the button and hot air came out and it was directed towards your feet is slightly better. But honestly, just, you know, paper is probably the best way, a nice paper towel. But whatever's available to you is certainly better than you walking out with completely wet hands.

Scott Webb: Dr. Poudel, you mentioned hand sanitizer earlier and I've sort of made using hand sanitizer like my job, you know, I have it everywhere. I go to the store, I come out, I use hand sanitizer. If I get fast food, they hand me my food and I immediately use hand sanitizer. What are your thoughts on that? There was a shortage early on. Now, you can find it everywhere in all different sizes. In general, did you or do you still recommend that we continue to use that as often as possible when we aren't able to wash our hands, when we can't get to a restroom?

Dr. Mahendra Poudel: When you go out to stores, those surfaces have been touched by multiple hundreds, thousands of people, and who knows how often those have been cleaned. And these bacteria, once they get there, they just live there and multiply. And, there's a fair chance that you're getting it in your fingers and your hand. It's really important that you clean your hand so that the cycle gets broken or it gets terminated so that the germs from your finger don't get into your nose or your mouth, or your family members, or your kids, or the person next to you that, you know, you're hugging or touching or shaking hands.

So I think it's a really good practice to wash your hands frequently, as many times as you can, especially after touching those surfaces, before eating food, because again, you know, like we mentioned earlier, the germs get from some surfaces into your hands and then you eat those and they get into your body, so that's really unhygienic.

And when we talk about hospitals and healthcare workers, we recommend that they wash their hands before entering a patient's room, after coming out of a patient's room, after touching any surfaces, doing any procedures, IV lines, giving IV medications. So again, this is such an important part of healthcare facilities to avoid hospital-acquired infection.

Scott Webb: Yeah, it definitely is. And Melissa, is there any value in using, let's say, something like baby wipes to try to keep our hands clean, to try to prevent the spread of germs? Or is that really just for like dirty hands? If you've got dirt or something on your hands, sure, your hands will be a bit cleaner, but is there any value in terms of germs?

Melissa Deen: No. As far as baby wipes or over-the-counter wipes that people buy, no. It's going to remove dirt and debris. But it won't sanitize or clean your hands appropriately. So even if you do use something like that, you would still need to mechanically wash your hands for that 15 to 20 seconds with soap and water in order to remove bacteria or viruses from that occurrence.

Dr. Mahendra Poudel: Let me just add to what Melissa said, it's absolutely true that baby wipes do not sanitize your hands. And the reason is for the sanitizers to be able to kill germs, you need alcohol or some sort of other antiseptic. And these baby wives, they do not have alcohol because the baby's skin is so soft, so that's why, you know, they clean the debris, but they don't kill all the germs that we want to kill.

Scott Webb: Dr. Poudel, as we wrap up here, what are some other ways we can use employ to avoid the spread of COVID or getting the flu? Would that be the flu vaccine, social distancing, and so on? You know, the greatest hits at this point. I'll leave it to you.

Dr. Mahendra Poudel: Yeah, we're heading into the winter season and we are really worried that it's going to be a bad flu, COVID, and other respiratory virus infections coming in. So at this point, the only thing we can do is be prepared and try and protect ourselves, our family, and our patient population in the hospital.

Best thing you can do, we already talked about hand hygiene, doing frequent hand hygiene, try and kill the germs and not take them home, especially from your fingers and hands. Also, flu shots are an excellent way of preventing and protecting yourself from flu. So if you already haven't received your flu shot, please receive your flu shot. And also, COVID boosters have shown to prevent serious infections and death. So these two vaccines, hand hygiene and masking, especially when you're around crowded populations. And if you're sick, please let your employer know and be able to stay home and isolate yourself so that you don't infect coworkers or other people around you.

Scott Webb: Well, as always, I can always count on the two of you. Great advice from experts. Thank you so much. You stay well.

Melissa Deen: Thank you, doctor.

Dr. Mahendra Poudel: Thank you.

Scott Webb: And for a complete list of all of our podcasts, please visit svmh.com. And if you found this podcast to be helpful, please be sure to tell a friend, neighbor or family member. And subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and check out the entire podcast library for additional topics of interest. This is Ask the Experts from Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well, and we'll talk again next time.