Health Care-Associated Infections

The article Infection Control in Home Care was given by Emily Rhinehart in April 2001. This article is about the home care and infection control in the United States of America. This article stated that, in the past decades, the scope and intensity of home care have increased, whereas the strategies and prevention solutions of infection surveillance and control efforts have fallen behind (Rhinehart, 2001). Lack of applicable and consistent methods for surveillance and acute-care practices of prevention are needed to control infections. The article provides an understanding about the appropriate strategy and need of training to assess the infectious disease and their risk. In addition, the author has also stated the

Many instances have been noted that healthcare providers are bringing the infection to the patients and not the patients bring the infection to the staff. Furthermore, It is well documented that nosocomial infection occurs (Rice, 2010) and hospitalized individuals face more complications and greater mortality from influenza. Healthcare providers are indirectly causing undo harm to patients that are more susceptible to infections such as influenza. “In nursing home settings, vaccination of healthcare workers has been shown to decrease morbidity and mortality among nursing home residents” (Babcock, et al., 2010, p. 459). One study suggests that there is a higher rate of occurrence of influenza among healthcare providers than residents. “In elder-care settings, influenza among staff precedes illness among residents, suggesting that health care workers introduce the virus into the setting” (Anikeeva, Braunack-Mayer, & Rogers, 2009, p. 25).

As we know, older residents are susceptible to infections because of multi-morbidity, greater severity of illness, functional impairment, cognitive impairment, incontinence, and the presence of frequent short-term and long-term indwelling device use such as urinary catheters and feeding tubes. For infection prevention control program, an effective infection prevention program includes a method of surveillance for infections and antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, an outbreak control plan for epidemics, isolation and standard precautions, hand hygiene, staff education, an employee health program, a resident health program, policy formation and periodic review with audits, and a policy

Healthcare acquired infections (HAI) not only contribute to exorbitant amounts of financial burden on the healthcare system but also attribute to staggering numbers of

To increase patient and hcw safety, health care workers should be mandate to get vaccination. Hcw are more at risk to get infection because of their contact with patient and then to spread it to patients, specially patients who are susceptible to the infection (CITATION). Influenza symptoms appears within 1-4 days. Before even hcw workes know that they have influenza infection and they are contagious, they may spread the infection to patient . Also, if hcw are infected, it will cause impact on their mental and physical functioning. Two randomly conducted studies have supported that mandatory influenza vaccination for hcw helped in decreasing death rate upto 44% in nursing home residents (Ottenberg, 2011). Potter et. al. identified that because of increased staff vaccination mortality rate reduced from 17% to 10% (Suillivan, 2010). The other fact which can effect patient safety due to low rate of vaccination is absenteeism of hcw during influenza epidemic.

Implementation of The Affordable Care Act has addressed some issues surrounding HAIs. For instance, section 3008 of ACA recognized the HAC or hospital acquired condition in the Reduction Program to further reduce HACs and improve patient quality. In this program, the ACA seeks to establish a monetary incentive through CMS that will encourage hospitals to reduce HAC or HAIs. Since most not for profit, public, and even large hospitals receive some form of funding through CMS from Medicare or Medicaid payments, this monetary incentive is one of the better incentives to have been recently proposed by the ACA regarding HAIs. Therefore, some of the strategies in managing and developing evidence-based practice relevant in handling

These statistics are a great accomplishment in the reduction of HAI’s but the sheer number of patients still acquiring HAI’s through various sites of infection is still astronomical. The HAI prevalence survey put out by the CDC states that in the year 2011, the estimated number of patients with HAI 's from acute care hospitals was 722,000 and about 75,000 died from their HAI’s (CDC, 2015). The state of California is facing a significant

Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) surveillance should identify the population who are of greater risk for contraction or transmission of MDROs over a 12- month period.

In regards to achieving higher value, the prevention of health -associated infections leads to better quality of life. To sustain state HAI prevention programs, these policy interventions can aid in accelerating HAI prevention by implementing a public health model. This public health model will promote adherence to evidence –based practices and focus on prevention efforts. There are several federal initiatives underway to advance HAI prevention; this allows time for states to enhance their HAI programs. Laws pertaining to HAI prevention have been passed by 32 states including the District of Columbia as of January 2011. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 and Patient Protection has placed emphasis on prevention of HAI through the CMS Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program. This has created a national mandate for public reporting of HAI. Value based purchasing strategies and federal pay for performance has been implemented in 2013 through the Affordable Care Act.

It is evident, one out of every 25 patients in an acute care setting acquires a HAI the United States alone (Bubb, et al., 2016). Further, HAIs result in a significantly higher morbidity, and mortality, lengths of stay, and cost of health care (McNeill, L. 2017); not to mention the negative health outcomes on families, and communities at large (bubb, et al., 2016). In addition, globalization is another factor that has perpetuated the transmission of infectious diseases as the world population has become more mobile.

Because SSI rates for healthcare facilities are made public, patients are able to gain knowledge of how well their facility SSI prevention practices work. “It is moving fast and furiously because consumers are pleased with the progress that has been made in reducing central line infections,” says Linda Greene, MPS, RN, CIC, director, infection prevention, Rochester General Health System, Rochester, New York. The public now expects the same transparency for SSIs” (Patterson, P., 2011) .Facilities that participate in Medicare must report their SSI for certain procedures; the list of procedures to report continues to grow as patients’ demand for listed procedures grow. ” SSI data will be reported through the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a secure, web-based surveillance system for reporting data on infections and other events. The data can then be used for analysis, facility comparisons, and quality improvement.” (Patterson, P., 2011) Hospitals will, and should, continuously search for new ways to increase their quality of care. Having a great overall rating for a low number of incidences of SSIs can only boost their ratings.

Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) which is also known as Nosocomial infection is defined as infection due to hospital care/ hospital environment and or cross infection from other patient, which the patient was not carrying before getting admitted to the hospital. Infection that the patient acquires after 48 hours of the admission in the hospital from its environment, within 3 days of hospital discharge or within 30 days of post-surgery discharge is HAIs. Patient who are more susceptible to HAIs are immunocompromised patient, patient admitted to ICU, post-surgical patient, infant and elderly population to name a few. Predominantly occurring HAIs are lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI), urinary tract infection(UTI), surgical site infection

The Healthy People 2020 has two over riding goals: Prevent, reduce, and ultimately eliminate healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), and promote respiratory health through better prevention, detection, treatment, and education efforts.

AR has darken the medicinal miracles we presumed, damaging every public and clinical healthcare program intended to restrict contagious infections all over the world (Ventola, 2015). Restricted accessibility to effective treatments and medical care, the general practice of self-treatment, and the accessibility of fake medicines have intensified resistance of drugs in the unindustrialized countries. In prosperous states, diseases developed in locations like nursing homes and hospitals are main sources of morbidity and demise. Furthermore, community-developed diseases are evolving, both as main resistance sources in healthcare premises and as autonomous epidemics. If AR keeps on spreading, our interrelated, technological sphere might regress to the dark ages of medication, before the current phenomenal medicines ever existed (Ventola, 2015).

Hi Dee, You did an amazing job creating your power point. You provided great information on hospital-acquired infections. I really enjoyed how you included ways on educating patients to self-advocate in order to prevent and avoid contracting hospital-acquired infections. The focus on preventing the spread of infection is mainly geared towards educating healthcare professional and not always on patients to self-advocate.