Infection Control Essay

Dirty equipment – having dirty equipment which is not cleaned between patients can spread infection very fast lots of bacteria can be spread on a blood pressure cuff for example.

Pathogens are everywhere. They are in people, animals, and the environment. Pathogens come in a wide variety. The types are fungal, bacterial, viral, and other parasites. All pathogens can be dangerous, but two of them are more dangerous. These two types that more dangerous are fungal and bacterial. While both fungal and bacterial pathogens cause illness, they differ in the way they are transmitted, the way they are treated, and the diseases they cause.

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

1.1: Employees rights and responsibilities in the relation to the prevention and control of infection are to follow company’s policies and procedures, keep themselves safe and others, report any hazards which could lead to infection, attend relevant courses, use the PPE provided, keeping the work environment clean and tidy and to maintain good personal hygiene

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

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

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are infections patients can acquire in a healthcare facility while being given medical care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website notes six major sites of infection that patients are at risk of acquiring while receiving care in acute care hospitals in the United States: pneumonia, gastrointestinal illness, urinary tract infections, primary bloodstream infections, surgical site infections from any inpatient surgery, and other types of infections. Their website recounts that as early as 1847 evidence is documented of persons acquiring infections while receiving care in a hospital. The website for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Healthcare Research

Prevention strategies of nosocomial infections related to poor hand hygiene include revision of: orientation, training processes, competency assessments, equipment cleaning, handwashing procedures, switching to the use of single-use IV flush vials, adding strategically located waterless hand rubs, defining supervisory expectations, conducting in-services, team trainings, and tracking systems (Infection control related sentinel events, 2003). Potential solutions to noncompliance include: consistent skin protectant application, reduced time required for handwashing, and antiseptic stations at the bedside and room entry points (Boyce, 1999). Hospital administrators must create an organizational atmosphere in which adherence to recommended HH practices are considered an integral part of providing high-quality care (Boyce, 1999). Improvement in infection control

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,

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

Hospital acquired infections are one of the most common complications of care in the hospital setting. Hospital acquired infections are infections that patients acquired during the stay in the hospital. These infections can cause an increase number of days the patients stay in the hospital. Hospital acquired infections makes the patients worse or even causes death. “In the USA alone, hospital acquired infections cause about 1.7 million infections and 99,000 deaths per year”(secondary).

Hands were wet by a running tap and antiseptic detergents or liquid soap (5ml was poured onto the hands, the technique consisted of five backwards and forwards strokes in the motion of; palm to palm, each palm over the other hand’s back, interlocking palm to palm, each palm over the other hand’s back interlocked and then the rotational scrubbing of the fingers into each palm finalised by the rubbing of the wrists during a 30-second time span. Then the hands were rinsed with water for 15-seconds and dried with two paper towels for 15-seconds. (Ayliffe et all, 1978) Whilst this technique has strict timescales the WHO elects the timescale of roughly the time taken to sing “Happy Birthday” twice. This raises concerns over the approximates as this will differ from person to person. The procedure itself remains nearly exact except from the addition of turning the tap off with a towel to avoid recontamination and the exact timings are lost. This technique only stated to use running water, however no temperature was specified. Hand Washing for Life (200-) advises that water should not be above 110F as this temperature would cause hands become damaged by loosing delicate tissues on the skin. This can cause bacteria to become trapped and more difficult to remove, as well as cause pain to the worker. It is a legal requirement for health professions to take the necessary measures to

Infection control is very important in the health care profession. Health care professionals, who do not practice proper infection control, allow themselves to become susceptible to a number of infections. Among the most dreaded of these infections are: hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Another infection which has more recently increased in prevalence is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These infections are all treated differently. Each infection has its own symptoms, classifications, and incubation periods. These infections are transmitted in very similar fashions, but they do not all target the same population.

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

Infection control within a healthcare facility is the prevention of the spread of many microorganisms from patient to patient, patient to a member of staff and also from the staff member to the patient that are in there care. The World Health Organisation have defined healthcare associated infections as an infection occurring in a patient in a hospital or other healthcare facility in whom the infection was not present or incubating at the time of admission. Every healthcare facility from hospitals to general practitioners office should have a designated member of staff or a team of people who ensure that the infection control procedures are abided by and adhered to at all times in order to protect both staff and patients. More than 300,000 people each year are affected by a healthcare associated infection and the cost of treatment for these patients is over £3,000 and there is also the cost of treatment after discharge.