Infection Control Controversy

Hi Ushma. I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that hospitals have an enormous amount of paperwork which can be overwhelming, but they are necessary. I agree that hospital is starting to move away from paper to a paperless system. When I go to the doctor, I do not have to fill out too much paper work because they swipe my insurance card for my insurance information and the medical assistant keys in any other information that they need from me directly into their laptop. I agree hand washing and sanitizing are the best way for the medical staff to not only from contracting an infection, but from spreading an infection to other patients as well. I too would ask the medial staff to wash their hands if they came into my room and did not do so.

Implementation of patient care practices for infection control is the role of the nursing staff. Nurses are responsible for maintaining hygiene, consistent with hospital policies and good nursing practice on the ward and monitoring aseptic techniques, including hand-washing and use of isolation. It is also in their scope of practice to promptly report to the attending physician any evidence of infection in patients under the nurse’s care and initiating patient isolation and ordering culture specimens from any patient showing signs of a communicable disease, when the physician is not immediately available. Limiting patient exposure to infections from visitors, hospital staff, other patients, or equipment used for diagnosis or treatment and maintaining

Not Washing hands frequently especially after dealing with any bodily fluids. Staff not staying at home if they are sick. Use a tissue, or cough and sneeze into your arm, not your hand. Turn away from other people. Open wounds not being covered especially on the hands. The incorrect use of PPE or the none use of PPE. Sharing personal items between each other. Incorrect food prep and storage.

These barriers include the understanding of standard cleaning techniques, communication between hospital personal of patients infected with certain vectors, and knowledge of specific vector control methods. When it comes to understanding standard cleaning techniques for the technologist the unique challenges for effective disinfection comes from the variety of surfaces and equipment found in radiology departments. Porous materials and intricate imaging and peripheral devices require special consideration when designing and maintaining department cleaning policies.5 Strictly adhering to this cleaning procedure between patient interaction is key factor. The technologist should always be aware of what surfaces were directly related to the patient during the exam. When it comes to the second barrier, improved communication can enhance adherence to infection control precautions. This may include some behavioral change which remains a challenging obstacle. Infection control protocols are sometimes knowingly violated with the thinking this specific occasion will not result with any substantial consequences. When infection precautions are correctly communicated the technologist is in a greater positon to be able to take the proper precautions for controlling the vector. The final barrier would be knowledge of disinfectant techniques of specific vectors and wearing the correct protective gear for each situation. For the example ABR infections listed above this would include gowns and gloves being worn. The gloves and gowns should be disposed of prior to exiting the room. Immediately washing of the hands. If an imaging plate is used with a patient under a ABR contact precaution, it should be protected with a plastic covering and after removing the

This article was a non-research article, it discussed the barriers within the healthcare system with proper hand washing. The three barriers are: (1) equipment challenges, (2) insufficient data quality & quantity, and (3) ineffective education. The equipment challenges are that soap or sanitizer are not available, empty dispensers, or inconvenient location for the healthcare worker. These barrier can lead to a miss hand hygiene opportunity or a potential infection. Many hospital are unable to collect sufficient data to assess the compliance of hand washing, this can affect the quality of patient safety. Recommendation from Joint Commission is continuing education to reinforce healthcare workers, the understanding of proper hand hygiene.

There are multiple reasons that play into patients acquiring these infections. One of those reasons being the characteristics of the patients. For example infants, the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, and patients that have devices inserted for therapeutic purposes are all at greater risk to contract an infection (Feasey & Molyneux, 2011). The devices that are inserted for therapeutic purposes are a huge factor related to hospital acquired infections. Urinary catheters are the top device to cause an infection; in fact 97% of urinary tract infections are due to catheterization. 87% of people that obtain a bloodstream infection receive the infection from a central line. Lastly 83% of pneumonia acquired in the hospital is linked to the use of mechanical ventilation (Chang et al., 2011). Then there is the health care worker side that plays into effect. One of the number one reasons an infection is created or spread is because a health care worker did not properly wash his or her hands or their patient’s hands. This seems like an obvious way to prevent an infection but yet it still remains one of the top factors that leads to a hospital acquired infection. Hand hygiene is not the only hygienic issue. Health care workers do not always follow proper personal protective equipment guidelines. They may not always don gloves when

Improving care can be tricky but necessary for the success of the organization. One way to improve the condition of the hospital is to ensure that patients are thoroughly examined to receive all necessary care during the initial hospital visit to lessen the chance of people returning to treat an ailment that could have been treated the first time. According to Rigby, Pegram, & Woodward, (2017), Hand washing can significantly reduce the spread of hospital acquired infections nonetheless, evidence suggests that many healthcare workers are not following the hand washing recommendation (p. 448). The organization must reiterate the importance of hand washing procedures to the staff but also inform them by avoiding this process is harmful to the

Research shows that Surgical site infections are preventable. According to the CDC, hand hygiene is the simplest approach to preventing the spread of infections and needs to be incorporated into the culture of the organization. Ensuring the use of infection control prevention is an important component of nursing care. Infection control prevention policies must be communicated undoubtedly to all employees. Staffers who do not comply must be re-educated to ensure that all are complying. Speaking up and pointing out that a nurse forgot to wash his or her hands, or notifying the surgical team that surgical instruments were not adequately cleaned may seem like small issues; but at the same time, not acknowledging a break in a sterile technique could mean the difference between life and death for a patient. One hospital that was struggling with high levels of infection related to surgical procedures, implemented a pre-procedure huddle as a team. This innovate way decreased the spread of infection and was a great way to improve the quality of care for patients. As mandated by the Joint commission, infection prevention personnel should provide multidisciplinary education on SSI prevention, to all team members, including

The main priority in my workplace is to protect the patients, visitors and staff from the risk of acquiring a hospital-associated infection. Most of our patients are immune-compromised due to treatment or disease, so we introduced a zero tolerance approach to poor hand hygiene. It is universally recognized that the hands are the primary source of cross-infection and good hand washing techniques are the main factor to prevent infection (Weston, 2013). We have enforced good hand hygiene practice by ensuring that all staff members are up to date with the mandatory yearly training and observing the 5 moments of hand hygiene. Family/visitors of patients are

Unit 4 introduces Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) which is essential when contributing towards the prevention of infection and how they reduce the transmission of infection to patients. Research shows that personal protective equipment helps protect staff from infection spread. (Endacott et al, 2009). Demonstrating the importance of wearing gloves,

A student nurse’s role within a healthcare setting is to ensure that they are following the measures in place to minimise infections spreading. Olin, J. (2003). Throughout student nurses training they will undergo mandatary training for infection control. As a student, it is key that you display good hand washing, this is following the five steps in the Ayliff technique and ensuring that the aseptic approach is done when touching wounds or applying dressings. The way you handle infected items is also a key way to minimise the risk of cross contamination this is important in a student nurse’s role and all other staff within the health sector, as well as this making sure that you are removing used gloves and aprons should be put into clinical

The field of nursing has evolved over time and keeps changing every day. With the numerous changes comes improvement in the quality of care that nurses give on a daily basis. For example, nurses never used to wear gloves when performing a majority of their tasks such as administering injections or toileting patients. Over time, it was discovered that many patients carried diseases that were easily transferrable via body fluids or blood. As a result of the discovery, nurses began wearing gloves when performing a majority of their nursing care. This not only helped to protect the nurses from contracting numerous diseases, but the patients as well. The nurses were not transferring germs and bacteria from patient to patients because they were

This article explores the non-compliance among practitioners and the negative effects from it. Hand hygiene non-compliance may increase patient mortality and morbidity rates, and raise healthcare costs (Mortell, 2012, p. 1011). Multiple infection prevention and control programs to improve hand hygiene among staff have been utilized and yet these all appear to have failed to achieve the required and desired compliance in hand hygiene (Mortell, 2012, p. 1011). Throughout the whole article Mortell emphasizes that hand-hygiene evidence and advice has been continuously disregarded by clinicians. “We have all seen educated and knowledgeable clinicians fail to practice their organization’s hand hygiene recommendations. One possible explanation for this is that there is an ‘ethical gap’” (Mortell, 2012, p. 1012). This article discusses a study on hand hygiene compliance for 2010 and 2011 in a cardiac surgical intensive care unit; which was measured by observational surveillance and audited daily. During the first year of the study, the nurses in that unit provided the doctors and other paramedical staff with continual education of the WHO (2009) recommendations, training and observational surveillance feedback. By doing so, hand hygiene compliance was maintained at greater than 70% (Mortell, 2012, p. 1012). During the following year, doctors were not receptive to nursing requests to comply with WHO requirements, which made the nurses stop providing ongoing support to doctors as they had in 2010. The outcome observed was that physician compliance fell to 60% or less (Mortell, 2012, p. 1012). Only the nurses and paramedics kept up with compliance of greater than 80% because of ongoing education, observation, feedback and a genuine belief in the benefits of hand hygiene to patient safety (Mortell, 2012, p. 1012). Mortell (2012) states that given that most clinicians

However, everybody who has contact with the patient or the environment is entitled to relevant information that will enable them to reduce the risks of transmission to

The priority nursing diagnosis of hospital acquired infection is risk for any kind of infection. One of the main goals for each patient in the hospital is the patient will remain free of infection as evidence by absence of heat, pain, redness, or swelling in any area of the patient’s body during each nurse’s shift. (care plan book). Frequently hand washing is the best intervention for preventing infection. Hand washing reduces the risk of transmission of pathogens by inhibiting the growth of or killing the microorganisms. (cb)Proper sterile technique during urinary