Infection Prevention
Megan Scott
Rasmussen College
Author Note
This research is being submitted on February 26th, 2017 for Julie Deane’s NUR2155 Fundamentals of Professional Nursing course.
Every year National Patient Safety Goals are set by the Joint Commission to acknowledge specific concerns in each health care setting. The purpose of these goals are to improve patient safety by identifying the problems and how to solve them (Joint Commission, 2016). Although prevalent, infections remain an ongoing concern in all heath care settings, especially in long term care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 380,000 people die from infection in long-term care facilities every year (Centers for Disease Control …show more content…
The elderly population living within long-term care facilities tend to have higher risk factors related to infections, compared to people in other health care settings. Older adults in long-term care have a lowered immunity, a shared living environment, and may be at risk for malnutrition and dehydration making them more succecptile to infection (Cousins, 2014). It’s important for health care providers to break the chain of infection by complying to infection control measures and minimizing further risk. (Cousins, 2014). Infection control measures, such as proper hand hygiene and environmental decontamination, can inhibit the transmission of infectious agents. According to the World Health Organization, hands are the most common source of transmission (Cousins, 2014). Hand hygiene is one of the simplest, most effective, and important interventions in preventing infections. Unfortuanetly, health care professionals underestimate the importance of hand hygienie and lack compliance (Cousins, 2014). By improving hand hygience compliance among health care workers, infection rates are expected to …show more content…
However, the CDC is confident that with effective environment cleaning practices that infection occurences will decrease (Colatrella, 2014). A multimodal cleaning intervention implemented in Boston proved three parts were effective, which included bucket immersion for applying disinfectant to cleaning cloths instead of pour bottles, education involving health care professionals and the environmental service staff, and feedback method using removal marks that are visible only under UV lighting (Colatrella, 2014). There are also new microfiber cleaning mops and cloths, which 70% of hopsitals are using, that remove 99.9% of microbes with water (Colatrella, 2014). With hand hygiene compliance and enhanced cleaning protocols, infection prevalence is
Megan Scott
Rasmussen College
Author Note
This research is being submitted on February 26th, 2017 for Julie Deane’s NUR2155 Fundamentals of Professional Nursing course.
Every year National Patient Safety Goals are set by the Joint Commission to acknowledge specific concerns in each health care setting. The purpose of these goals are to improve patient safety by identifying the problems and how to solve them (Joint Commission, 2016). Although prevalent, infections remain an ongoing concern in all heath care settings, especially in long term care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 380,000 people die from infection in long-term care facilities every year (Centers for Disease Control …show more content…
The elderly population living within long-term care facilities tend to have higher risk factors related to infections, compared to people in other health care settings. Older adults in long-term care have a lowered immunity, a shared living environment, and may be at risk for malnutrition and dehydration making them more succecptile to infection (Cousins, 2014). It’s important for health care providers to break the chain of infection by complying to infection control measures and minimizing further risk. (Cousins, 2014). Infection control measures, such as proper hand hygiene and environmental decontamination, can inhibit the transmission of infectious agents. According to the World Health Organization, hands are the most common source of transmission (Cousins, 2014). Hand hygiene is one of the simplest, most effective, and important interventions in preventing infections. Unfortuanetly, health care professionals underestimate the importance of hand hygienie and lack compliance (Cousins, 2014). By improving hand hygience compliance among health care workers, infection rates are expected to …show more content…
However, the CDC is confident that with effective environment cleaning practices that infection occurences will decrease (Colatrella, 2014). A multimodal cleaning intervention implemented in Boston proved three parts were effective, which included bucket immersion for applying disinfectant to cleaning cloths instead of pour bottles, education involving health care professionals and the environmental service staff, and feedback method using removal marks that are visible only under UV lighting (Colatrella, 2014). There are also new microfiber cleaning mops and cloths, which 70% of hopsitals are using, that remove 99.9% of microbes with water (Colatrella, 2014). With hand hygiene compliance and enhanced cleaning protocols, infection prevalence is