The Safety Of A Healthcare Facility Essay

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.

The main of focus of the quality improvement program is always patient’s safety, needs, quality care and expectations. Even though the healthcare system is very critical as it involves the lives of other, there are some errors that can lead to undesirable consequences. One of the most common error that risks the lives of thousands of people including both patients and healthcare employees is the hand hygiene. Healthcare personnel are the leading source for the spread of Hospital acquired Infections. Every year about one million people die from hospital acquired infections in United States.

The hospital is compliant with infection control protocol according to the CDC standard guidelines. “Hand hygiene, contact precautions, as well as cleaning and disinfecting patient care equipment and the patient’s environment are essential strategies for preventing the spread of health care–associated infections. Hand hygiene is addressed in NPSG.07.01.01. Contact precautions for patients with

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

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

(Tortora, Funke, & Case, 2013, p. 414) Most hospitalized patients will be immune compromised to some extent and the hospital, by nature, is a pathogen rich environment. Ongoing efforts to minimize pathogens in the environment by all hospital employees, patients and visitors are crucial. Infection control nurses and/or committees should work continuously to identify and eradicate possible infection sources. Equipment, especially respirators and humidifiers must be kept scrupulously clean lest they become reservoirs for microbial growth. (Tortora, Funke, & Case, 2013, p. 417) Strategically placed signs warning visitors to avoid entering the hospital if they are unwell, strict compliance with standard precautions, private rooms and special ventilation systems for contagious patients are all essential in the effort to minimize contamination. Occasionally, airborne and droplet precautions are necessary, but most pathogens responsible for common HAIs are spread by direct or indirect contact. Chain of transmission is therefore the parameter over which nurses have particular influence, as nurses have the most direct, hands-on contact with

Controlling infections in the hospital setting has been a major issue for hundreds of years. Patients have largely been effected by pathogens transferred from those appointed to care for them. Florence Nightingale became famous for changing the way we practice patient care. Her idea was simple yet powerful and it is still considered the standard worldwide. She promoted hand washing in order to reduce healthcare infections. Flash-forward a hundred years and we are now seeing infections increase through a different route. The CDC estimated about 31,100 central line associated blood stream infections occur each year (Control, 2015). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most commonly reported pathogens include coagulase-negative staphylococci, Staphylococcus aureus, enterococci, and Candida. (Tavianini, Deacon, Negrete, & Salapka, 2014). Although central lines was not yet a technology created in healthcare, implementing the fundamental skills as emphasized by Nightingale

Hospital-Acquired Infections entail, urinary tract infections, pneumonia and bloodstream infections. In addition to the patients, the Infections tend also to affect the healthcare workers who usually take care of the patients who are the main sources of the of the infectious diseases in the hospitals. The project tends to investigate the best evidence-based practices and approaches used to reduce the rate transmission and spread of the HAIs, such as washing of hands by healthcare workers. The statement of the problem focuses on the best methods and efforts that can be developed and implemented in the hospitals with the objective of preventing the Hospital Acquired Infections contributed by healthcare workers and the patients who come for treatments at the hospitals (CDC, 2016).

Healthcare-associated infection has been an issue in many facilities throughout the years. It is a health risk to patients and very costly to the facilities. In order to improve and make changes to the amount of infections that the facilities have you must first change the staff and facilities view of preventing healthcare-associated infection.

Most of the germs causing bacteria are transmitted to the patient by hands during the patient care (World Health Organization, 2016). The surfaces in patient rooms, the health care workers (HCWs) clothing, and the instruments used by the HCW can be contaminated. Proper hand hygiene is needed to prevent or reduce the transmission of HCAIs in patients. Urinary tract infection, surgical site infection, pneumonia and infections of the bloodstream can be contacted through improper hand hygiene. HCAIs are the major cause of morbidity and mortality (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP), 2016). These infections cost the health care system billions of dollars every year and several losses of lives. It can have disastrous emotional, financial and medical impact on patients and their family members. These infections jeopardize the safety and care for patients (WHO, 2016). Hand hygiene is the first line of defense against infections. Before contact with patient, hand hygiene should be performed by hand washing with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand rub. Hands should be disinfected before patient contact, prior to and following the insertion of any invasive devices, before using gloves for central intravascular catheter insertion (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016). Hand should be cleaned following checking vital signs, contact with mucous

They are amongst the primary causes of avoidable deaths in the United States and are associated with a considerable increment in the cost of health care each year. The primary most effective means to decrease hospital acquired infection is hand hygiene, yet researches show that most health care providers are reluctant for hand washing. Nurses are the ones who have a close contact with the patient than any other health care provider. The nurse is basically a patient promoter that puts him/her in an exceptional position. Therefore, the nurse has the unique opportunity to decrease the potential for hospital-acquired infections. He/she must be certain that all aspects of his/her nursing practice are based on the evidence, researches and education. He/she can smooth the progress of patient recovery and minimize complications related to infections by applying the skills and knowledge of nursing

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), one out of twenty five patients have obtained a health care associated infection (HAI) during their visit at a healthcare facility. This is approximately 1.7 million HAIs per year, just including the United States. From these incidents, roughly 17% result in death (Allen, 2015). Healthcare associated infections have become a major patient safety issue around the world. Patients are obtaining infections under the care of healthcare professionals when they are seeking help for a non-related issue. HAIs are some of the most common

A problem identified in my clinical experience at the Veterans Administration Medical Center was improper infection control measures when a patient was on isolation precautions. HAIs are something that can be prevented but are still very prevalent today. They increase rates of increase hospital stays, cost, readmission, morbidity, and death. The Center for Disease Control notes, “HAIs affect 5 to 10 percent of hospitalized patients in the U.S. per year. Approximately 1.7 million HAIs occur in U.S. hospitals each year, resulting in 99,000 deaths and an estimated $20 billion in healthcare costs.” (CDC, 2015) HAIs can come from cross contamination from healthcare workers to the patients, patients to other patient’s, family members to patients,

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