Antimicrobial Resistance In Nursing

Gold standard procedures should be implemented with the aim of providing timely and accurate results. (Schentag) The culture result should be accompanied by its clinical significance, selective reporting of susceptibility testing results in accordance with hospital antimicrobial therapy guidelines and suggested management. (Schentag) This encourages appropriate prescribing and minimises unnecessary use of antimicrobials. The clinical microbiology team should also provide reports to AMS regarding resistant organisms.

Septic shock is the leading cause of death for patients in intensive care units and is the final stage in a continuum of infectious and inflammatory processes. This continuum begins with bacteremia, which is the presence of bacteria in the blood. Normally the body’s immune system can fight off a localized infection caused by a small amount of bacteria in the blood and the person will remain asymptomatic. However, a hospitalized patient could be immunocompromised, have a

Through medical advances in technology and practice, nurses have been afforded the opportunity to provide lifesaving care to patients. However, this lifesaving care comes with the risk of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Generally speaking, HAIs are infections directly related with the delivery of healthcare and are often caused by viral, bacterial or

Individuals with cancer are predisposed to infection and are at a greatly increased risk for death from infection-related illnesses. In addition to the immunosuppressive effects of the cancer itself, individuals with cancer may be at increase risk for infection due to surgery and treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation. Frequent hospital stays and devices such as indwelling catheters

Healthcare is an ever-growing, booming industry and as medical technology advances so should our standards of care. Once known as hospital acquired “nosocomial” infections, Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) are still afflicting the very patients we are to be treating. These patients could be our loved ones, friends, and family so to say that, “1 in 25 hospital patients have at least one HAI in a U.S. acute care hospital” (CDC, 2015), is still one too many.

infections. There are many reasons for their vulnerability including frailty, pre-existing conditions, and weakened immune systems. They may not be able to fully communicate with healthcare workers to report changes in health or may be too embarrassed by their decline in health to report the changes. Because of this, it is very important for residential care workers to ensure that infection control and prevention measures are implemented. Infections can cause many unwanted side effects in patients such as pain, discomfort, disorientation, and even in severe cases death. Not all infections can be passed from person to person. However, in residential care settings, many infections that can be passed from person to

The occurrence and undesirable complications from hospital acquired infections (HAIs) have been well recognized for the last several decades. The occurrence of HAIs continues to escalate at an alarming rate. HAIs originally referred to those infections associated with admission in an acute-care hospital (formerly called a nosocomial infection). These unanticipated infections develop during the course of health care treatment and result in significant patient illnesses and deaths (morbidity and mortality); prolong the duration of hospital stays; and necessitate additional diagnostic and therapeutic

This shows a vast majority of infection cases are likely to be witnessed in the future if appropriate measures are not taken to curb the challenge. While the frequency of CLABSI outside ICU is not known, patients who are outside the intensive care units are equally at risk. However, Baker (2016) found out that the cases of central line infections in patients transitioned from ICUs to step-down units or outside the intensive care units had increased in some areas. The efforts to prevent the infections through research into the problems associated with CLABSI also represent substantial mechanisms in place to curb this health problem (Smith, Mba-Jonas, Tourdjman, Schimek, DeBess, Marsden-Haug & Harris, 2014).

As a hospital, quality care should be a priority for patients that are going to be treated for a sickness, or any type of procedure that is going to take place. A lot of times a patient gets an infection while they were at the hospital, on top of being treated for what they original came in for. Health facilities should be environments of healing, which they are, but they also have tons of various types of germs and infections, which grasp onto individuals that have weak immune systems/are sick. Some infections that are at hospitals are Tuberculosis, VRE, VAP, C-Diff, UTI, and MRSA. Preventive measures to stop the spread of the infections is lacking tremendously in the work and aim to provide safety for all patient’s health. The work

More than one million of Healthcare associated infections happen across healthcare settings every year, or 1 in 20 people admitted to any healthcare setting (Healthy people 2020, 2013). HAIs are the most common complication seen in hospitalized patients. HAIs increase morbidity, mortality, healthcare costs, and length of stay even after adjustment for the main underlying illness. According to the Center for Diseases Control (CDC, April 2013) 5 to 10% of patients admitted to acute-care hospitals, or long-term care facilities approximately 2 million patients per year in the United States acquire a nosocomial infection. At least 90,000 deaths per year are a result of HAIs, making it the fifth leading cause of death in acute-care hospitals. These

These patients are more at risk of developing sepsis because their immune system may not have the capacity to fight off the infection as the rest of the population (McClelland, 2014). If sepsis develops in a patient, especially a patient who is more at risk, it is important for the nurse to recognize that an infection has developed such as redness, swelling, fever, and drainage. The nurse should assess the patient for possible signs and symptoms of infection including a urinary tract infection, infection in a wound either from diabetes or a surgical wound and presence of a respiratory infection (Bernstein, 2013). An infection can occur anywhere in the body and completing an assessment is important when there is an infection present. If the infection is ignored or not treated, it can become systemic. A systemic infection will destroy the tissue and can eventually reach the blood stream causing a fever, increased heart and respiratory rate, decrease in blood pressure, increase in blood glucose, altered mental status and a severe increase or decrease in WBC. Once treatment has been initiated, how the body responds to the treatment will depend on the severity of the sepsis. If the body does not respond to the rapid fluid replacement or other measures to sustain life, then the patient is in septic shock (McClelland,

Hospital acquired infections or healthcare associated infections (HAI’S) which is also known as nosocomial infections have been a burden to society for decades, which has gained the top ten positions in the cause of death in the united states (CDC, 2015), although there is a decrease it still poses as a problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) there are several types of healthcare associated infections, which “includes central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABI), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), and ventilator-associated pneumonia infections (VAP)” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). Some other common types of HAI’s which are also Multidrug-Resistant Organisms

There are many kinds of healthcare associated infections such as Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), Clostridium difficile (C difficile), pneumonia, Catheter associated Urinary Tract Infection (UTI), surgical site infection, and Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infection (CLABSI).

ICU patients generally sustain many invasive procedures, being thus at higher risk for health care-associated infections than those treated in non-critical care areas.

Hospital acquired infections are spread by numerous routes including contact, intravenous routes, air, water, oral routes, and through surgery. The most common types of infections in hospitals include urinary tract infections (32%),