Employing universal precautions to reduce the risk of exposure to pathogens is standard and necessary procedure for health care professionals all over the world.Employing universal precautions to reduce the risk of exposure to pathogens is standard and necessary procedure for health care professionals all over the world. Great lengths are taken to establish and to maintain sterile environments to protect patients and caregivers , and considerable work goes in to insuring that all parties involved in any sort of health care or visiting any health care environment are at reduced risk of infection. In that medical professionals deal with infectious and transmittable diseases on an hourly basis for many years of their working lives , establishing a set of procedures designed to limit their exposure to dangerous and often deadly contaminants is of primary importance. This set of procedures is called “universal precautions ,” and is the industry standard for health care workers and their patients around the world today. While universal precautions go a long way towards limiting exposure and infection , it is not a perfect system. Luckily , automatic towel dispensers can contribute significantly to improving the efficacy of universal precautions by further limiting opportunities for exposure to dangerous viruses , bacteria , diseases , biological hazards and chemical contaminants.Universal precautions employs a series of steps and rules necessary to keep health care professionals and their patients safe from infection or cross contamination. The use of latex or rubber gloves is prescribed , as many infectious diseases or harmful contaminants enter the body through the many small cuts and scrapes that many individuals accumulate on their hands and fingers. A simple torn cuticle can often be enough for opportunistic infections to enter the body. Further , insofar as hands are the means with which individuals interact with their physical environment , any contagion residing on the hands is quickly and easily passed on to other objects and even to other persons with something as seemingly innocuous as a handshake. Use of gloves when working with patients or potential contaminants provides a barrier between the harmful material and the vulnerable skin.Frequent and intense hand-washing may be the very best means of controlling exposure to harmful materials , and is practiced vigorously in the health care fields. Many health care workers will complain of washing their hands so very frequently and for so very long , yet , upon consideration of the risks they take in dealing with infectious diseases professionally , hand-washing is an essential step in maintaining universal precautions. The fewer objects , that a pair of clean hands touches , before going back inside the barrier of a safe pair of latex or rubber gloves is key. Touching a contaminated paper towel dispenser , for example , negates any benefits to be gained from hand-washing and likely leads to contamination with any number of harmful or potentially deadly substances.Automatic towel dispensers improve upon universal precautions by removing one of the most often contaminated objects from the hand-washing formula , the paper towel dispenser. Whereas the lever on a manual paper towel dispenser is likely awash in harmful bacteria and viruses , the automatic towel dispensers require no touching , and simply emit paper towels with a simple wave of the hand.
