SCHOLARSHIP. Karin Granqvist, an operating room nurse and doctoral student at Sahlgrenska Academy, has been awarded the Swedish Society of Nursing’s Florence Nightingale Scholarship, which is only given once in connection with the 200th birthday of this pioneering nurse.
The scholarship is SEK 50,000. It is awarded in the field of hygiene, an area Florence Nightingale and her colleagues were widely recognized for in connection with their lifesaving work caring for wounded soldiers during the Crimean War in the mid 1800s. As a modern operating room nurse, preventing infection is still one of the profession’s cornerstones, according to Karin Granqvist.
“Hand hygiene is fundamental for preventing infections, but sadly it still neglected. I want to know why and what we can do to improve compliance.”
Digital feedback
With Annette Erichsen Andersson as her supervisor, Karin Granqvist is working on her doctoral project at Sahlgrenska Academy. In this work, she is assessing whether a new technology that provides digital feedback can improve hand hygiene in medical care.
She will use the scholarship to learn more about hand hygiene, an area that can sound simple but that Granqvist has realized is more complex the more she learns about it. In the future, she wants to research about hand hygiene in other contexts.
“I want to study how we can make it easier for staff to maintain good hand hygiene at doctor’s offices, medical centers and other types of care facilities than just operating rooms. It would be particularly interesting to study how to improve the potential for good hand hygiene within the municipal-based care.”
The Year of the Nurse 2020
The scholarship is awarded by the Swedish Society of Nursing together with the Swedish Red Cross University College, Sophiahemmet University and Föreningen Södra Sveriges Sjuksköterskehem, in connection with Florence Nightingale’s 200th birthday and the Year of the Nurse 2020.
The project aims to reduce care-related infections with an innovative approach. By using technology to increase compliance to guidelines, staff knowledge and experience can be utilized to improve care. With a focus on patient safety and a clear plan for implementation and evaluation, the project has great potential for many parts of health and medical care.
TEXT: ELIN LINDSTRÖM
