Position Precautions : The Kotter Model Of Abortion And Health Care

Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)

Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) affect over 1.7 million patients each year, causing almost 100,000 deaths annually in the United States alone (Johnson, 2010). According to the World Health Organization, HAIs are the most frequent adverse event in the healthcare industry. Fortunately, most of these infections can be prevented with one single intervention, proper hand hygiene (“The Evidence,” n.d.). Four out of five pathogens that cause illness are spread by direct contact. Proper hand hygiene eliminates these pathogens and helps to prevent cross-contamination and HAIs (Linton, 2015; “Hand Hygiene,” n.d.). Reduction of cross-contamination and HAIs improves patient outcomes, increases employee wellness, and lowers health care costs. Adherence to proper hand hygiene is the single most important safety measure in the health care setting. However, for many years compliance to proper hand hygiene in the healthcare industry has been dismally low. New and inventive measures must be implemented to increase compliance to proper hand hygiene and lower the rate of hospital-acquired infections.

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

Keeping our hands clean is one of the most effcient and important steps we can do as humans to avoid getting sick or spreading germs to other people. Unwashed hands spread many diseases such as the flue, E. coli, and salmonella. Unfortunately, hand hygiene is still one of today’s most leading causes of infection in health care facilities. The risk of clinicians, patients, and visitors not complying with hand hygiene protocols creates a practice problem for nurses and their patient care. The cause of health care infections, also known as, health care-associated infections (HAIs) are increasing along with the rise of the inability to control or treat infections that are multi-drug resistant. Lack of proper hand hygiene is a major problem in clinical settings sourcing from critical care divisions where the most contaminations are prevalent. This paper will discuss how hand hygiene affects the nursing process and solutions of how to better prevent HAIs within the nursing scope of practice.

As a leader in health care, it is important that employees have the proper education and training for compliance with infection control. An infection control practitioner should be assigned surveillance of infections, calculate infection rates, and report these numbers to the appropriate personnel. Clinical nurses, such as nurses, should have periodic evaluations to ensure they are practicing patient safety. There are many other key factors that should be implemented in health care facilities to improve infection control. First is hand hygiene; there could be random observers periodically monitoring a certain floor or department for hand sanitation practices. Secondly, is the health care environment. This includes, making sure employees are sanitizing surfaces and equipment, educating visitors and families on infection control measures, and properly using personal protective equipment. Improper use, wear, and removal of personal protective equipment can cause serious health consequences to the worker and the patients, which means employees need be continuously trained and educated on this equipment.

This study was intended to prove that hand hygiene practiced according to the CDC guidelines will decrease the incidence of hospital acquired infections. This could not really be proved in this study since the hospitals were not able to maintain improvement in hand hygiene. Health care workers were familiar with guidelines but significant practice changes were not maintained. Some of the infection rates did improve during this time but the correlation with hand hygiene is not consistent. There were other practice changes occurring during this same time and those changes may be responsible for the decreased infection rates.

Policies in Relation to Abortion Before and After the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Case

A campaign called, “Clean Hands Save Lives” endorsed by the CDC in the year 2015 put an emphasis on five simple steps to avoid or reduce illnesses. The steps are the following and to be carried out in that order: wet, lather, scrub, rinse, and dry (Potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall, pg. 458). In addition to performing hand hygiene, gloves must also be used when handling any type of specimen. The use of PPE or Personal protective equipment is important as it protects the wearer from any type of injury or infection. (PPE) Healthcare facilities disclose the type of contact precaution outside a patient’s door. For example, a label for Airborne Precautions indicate that a respiratory protection device (N95 respirator) must be worn in order to enter the room and while interacting with the patient. A room with Droplet Precautions requires the use of a mask or respirator. On the other hand, a room with Contact Precautions indicates the use of gloves and gowns, and a room with category Protective Environment requires protection with HEPA filtration, mask, gloves, and gowns (Potter et al., pg 459).

When you tell a toddler that they can’t have a cookie, even though they initially did not care about whether or not they could consume the cookie, suddenly they cannot stop thinking about that cookie they can no longer have. This is natural human response occurs in adults as well as children. So as you would expect, although 47% of women have declared themselves pro-choice (Saad "Americans Misjudge U.S. Abortion Views"), according to a study in 2011, only 1.7% of women aged 15–44 had an abortion (Jones and Jerman "Abortion Incidence and Service Availability In the United States, 2011"). These statistics show that even though most women who support the pro-choice movement are unlikely to have an abortion, they still believe that those women who choose to have an abortion should have the right to make a decision for her own body. A woman should have the right to make choices for her own body because separation of church and state prevents religion from being used as a way to limit women 's rights and no one, especially not men or the government, is as qualified as a medical professional when it comes to making medical recommendations and diagnostics. Even though there could be an argument that fetal personhood is subjective based on religion as to whether or not abortion can be considered murder, philosopher, Immanuel Kant can dispute that argument with his moral theory on what makes someone human.

Over the past few centuries state and federal laws concerning a females reproductive rights have changed dramatically. The female population has been greatly affected by many laws regarding their reproductive rights and their ability to make educated decisions about family planning. The 1973 case Roe vs. Wade set the motion to allow women to control their bodies and their decision to end a pregnancy through abortion. Prior to this case, in almost all 50 states abortions were deemed illegal.

"There has to be some form of punishment”, stated republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, when asked about his views on abortion and the women who choose to get them. It’s interesting how the only person Mr. Trump would punish is women; not the man who helped her get pregnant or the doctor who performed the abortion. Amongst the many attacks women face over their right to make health care choices for themselves, statements like these mirrors America’s deeply entrenched patriarchal views about women’s role in our society. Reproductive health programing in the U.S. focusses on empowering women and increasing women’s access to care. However, this approach does little to change societal views that impact women’s health daily. To tackle traditional beliefs about sex and sexual health, research suggest that transformative approaches to reproductive health promotion are most effective (Barker, 2007). This approach attempts to change the current ideology surrounding gender roles in hopes of creating more gender equitable relationships and better health outcomes for men and women. It’s time for reproductive health promotion in the U.S. to take a more transformative approach; an approach that will improve gender relations and make views like Mr. Trumps’ fade into the abyss of American history.

Healthcare associated infections have an impact on patients - how? Can be prevented greatly with compliance to hand hygiene protocols (REF).

What is abortion? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “Abortion: the premature expulsion of a [foetus] from the womb; an operation to cause this.” Abortion has been a controversial topic for many years. Some people favor adoption and some are against it. “In 2008 an estimated 1.21 million abortions were performed in the Unites States.”(Jones, and Kooistra). Many opinions collaborate in abortions rights or abortion legislation. “In 2008, 84,610 women obtained abortions in Texas, producing a rate of 16.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Some of these women were from other states, and some Texas residents had abortions in other states, so this rate may not reflect the abortion rate of state residents. The rate decreased

The best control methodologies for lessening the transmission of MRSA is by "detachment and decolonization." The technique for seclusion includes utilizing expandable gloves and cook's garments or putting the patients in disengagement wards and single rooms. Decolonization is a strategy that endeavors to stifle or dispense with the MRSA utilizing antimicrobial arrangements like "chlorhexidine and intranasal mupirocin." Decolonisation lessens the bacterial group accessible to cause endogenous disease and transmission. The two strategy segregation and decolonization are consolidated together for a more successful control if MRSA contamination. In the wake of utilizing both decolonization and detachment, another approach is to screen for the discovery

Recent studies show that at any time, over 1.4 million people worldwide suffer from hospital-acquired infections (Public Health Ontario). In Canada alone, approximately 250 000 patients every year contract infectious micro-organisms from their healthcare providers (Nagel 18). At London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) we take pride in providing world class care in a safe, comfortable environment for patients. However, between 2008 and 2010 the LHSC still had between 20 and 30 per cent non-compliance to proper hand-washing protocol (Nagel 20). This data is very troubling considering it is following the launch of “Just Clean Your Hands” pilot project. As student nurses and volunteers of the LHSC team we are equally responsible to increase hand-washing compliance.