Healthcare Associated Infections

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

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

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) will begin to display signs and symptoms within 48 hours. In order to treat the infections, physicians need to diagnostic tools quickly. The manufacturer of new diagnostic test makers, Kalorama Information stated last year that the world demand for testing and treatment of HAI will be over 10 billion dollars by the year 2015, increasing from 9 billion dollars in 2010. Kalorama also stated that HAI has a 5% infection rate of 40 million hospital visits a year, causing 100,000 deaths in the U.S. annually (Kalorama Information, July 14, 2011). Early diagnosis will improve the patient's outcome and decrease the chance of death. According to Kalorama, 20-30% of the HAI can be prevented by the simple use of better hand washing and cross contamination avoidance although the others need more intensive changes such as hospital ventilation systems and using more disposable supplies (Kalorama Information, p. 113) .

Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) affect 1.7 million Americans each year with as many as 98,000 dying annually as a result of hospital-acquired conditions (HAC) (Kavanagh, 2007). In 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented policy to include non-payment for HAC in order to improve quality patient care and contain costs. This non-payment disincentive refuses to pay for complications of care that are considered preventable. Two other paradigms of this policy used to promote quality include pay-for-performance initiatives and public disclosure of HAC.

Can you imagine the misery of being admitted to the hospital, only to become infected with a separate illness? Healthcare-associated infections are defined as infections not present and without evidence of incubation at the time of admission to a healthcare setting. (CDC, 2016) These infections are acquired as an indirect result of the necessity for the patient to endure a hospital stay. While the rate of these types of infections has decreased in recent years, nearly 1.7 Million cases of healthcare-associated infections are reported annually according to the Center for Disease Control. Healthcare-associated infections are a threat to patient safety and with just under 100,000 deaths a year resulting from healthcare-associated infections, more needs to be done to protect the people we have sworn to do no harm to.

Checking in to the hospital comes with a heavy price tag, and sometimes you get more than what you bargained for. As highly trained doctors, nurses, and staff traverse through the hospital, they carry with them microbial agents of disease. Although regarded as centers for treatment and prevention, hospitals are also known to harbor nosocomial, healthcare-associated, bacterial infections. These infections can be a result of overused or inappropriately used antibiotics and the breaching of infection containment policies by patients and staff. Though healthcare-associated infections have been decreasing, one infection inciting nosocomial bacterium,

Healthcare acquired infections (HAI) or nosocomial infections are defined as an infection that a patient acquires while being treated in a medical facility. Nosocomial infections contribute to significant loss of life and cost the health care system millions of dollars each year. The purpose of this paper is review the policy proposed by the Illinois Department of Health (IDPH) to Prevent Health Care Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance. This paper will also discuss the current relevance to health care, the strengths and weaknesses of the policy as evidenced by current literature and public health data. Recommendations for additions to or changes in the policy will also

In their systematic review and meta-analysis about the burden of health-care-associated infection Allegranzi et al., (2011), concluded that health care associated infections (HCAIs) are the most frequent threats to patient safety worldwide. Therefore, Raveis et al., (2014) established that minimizing HCAIs is every health care worker responsibility.

Healthcare associated infection is a more concealed problem that yet no health care organisation or nation can announce to have resolved it (World Health Organization, 2011). In emergency departments and intensive care units 30% of patients are suffered from minimum one episode of nosocomial infections with associated morbidity and mortality (World Health Organization, 2011, p. 3). Strong evidences are available that hospital acquired infections can be prevented and burden can be reduced up to 50% or more (World Health Organization, 2011). Australian national quality and safety health service standard no.3 emphasize prevention and control of hospital associated infections. Most of hospital acquired infections in intensive care units are associated

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

People getting a medical care can get a serious infection. One type of healthcare-associated infection is caused by the germ C difficile was estimated to cause almost half a million infections in the United States in 2011, and 29,000 died within 30 days of the initial diagnosis (Centers for Disease, control, and prevention, 2015, 25). Some of the things do prevent Clostridium difficile infection in the hospital and another healthcare setting place patients infection in private room, omplement an environment cleaning and disifection strategy.

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) are infections that develop in a hospital environment. This could be anything from a patient acquiring the infection during their hospital visit or the spreading of the infection amongst hospital staff. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that 1.7 million HAI’s contribute to at least 98,000 deaths per year in the United States. On a more economical aspect; the United States spends $45 billion per year on nosocomial related health problems (Schmidt, pg 31).

"In hospitals, HAIs lead to extended hospital stays, contribute to increased medical costs, and are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality" ("Healthcare-Associated Infections," 2011). According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 722,000 patients in the United States had at least one type of HAI in 2011 ("Healthcare-Associated Infections," 2014). Of these 722,000, the CDC estimated that 75,000 of the hospitalized patients died while in the hospital. While one may think that the intensive care unit (ICU) is the most common place for HAIs, the CDC explains that over half of the HAIs reported were outside of the ICU.

Every day, people admit themselves to a healthcare facility with hopes of improving their health. Whether for a major surgery or just for a little cough patients are being subjected to infections at the hands of the very people that are supposed to be helping them.Healthy People 2020 (2016) reports “At any one time in the United States, 1 out of every 25 hospitalized patients are affected by an HAI.” This is not and should never be an acceptable number in this day and age of technology and information. Patients can develop HAI’s can be acquired through interaction with employees, catheter associated infections, surgical sites, bloodstream through central lines, and pneumonia associated with ventilators. Healthcare-acquired infections not only affect the patient, but they affect the staff as well as the hospital as a whole. The safety of patients is an integral part of ensuring quality care and the patient leaving in a better condition than they came. Patient safety can be provided by finding ways to reduce healthcare-acquired infections, explaining the effects of these infections on the patient and hospital, and increasing hand hygiene and education with patients as well as staff.

Nosocomial infections, also known as hospital-acquired infections, are those that develop while a patient is admitted on an in-patient basis to a hospital that were neither evident nor incubating and non-presenting at the time of the patient's admission (Abedon, 1998; Sinkowitz-Cochran & Jarvis, 2001). Decades of studies have demonstrated that such infections are both common and significant, and have been so since such studies began examining the problem (Irwin & Rippe, 2008). Some efforts to address these problems have shown varying degrees of success, however resource limitations and non-controllable issues make it all but impossible to effectively eliminate these infections (Sinkowitz-Cochran & Jarvis, 2001; Irwin & Rippe, 2008). The following analysis examines one recent quantitative article regarding screening procedures for nosocomial infections and the effect this has on rates and severity of infections in the hospital studied by researchers.