Abstract
The safety of the healthcare provider (s) and that of its clients (patients) remains to be of uttermost importance. The increasing incidence of acquired infection within the health facilities due to the use of contaminated materials as well as transfer of communicable diseases is become notably identified scenario. Dealing with the incidences of acquired infection through the process of healthcare delivery is becoming a world health organizations’ (WHO) major concern, (Weston, 2013). Over the past decade the rising complains on the diseases related from acquired infection was identified. This shows that there is need to draw a close attention towards saving the lives of the health care providers as well as the patients themselves. This study therefore takes into account some recent researches by the researchers through assessing the best alternatives forgone towards ending the deadly menace through introduction of infection prevention seminars to nurses and students nurses with the practicum arenas. The report will include the secondary source of information to collect its data for analysis and interpretation where recommendations and conclusion will be drawn.
Introduction
It has been found that, every year there are more than 2 million people that get infected with different infections out of which nearly 100,000 even die in such cases (Zhang, 2015). The transmission of bacteria and other pathogens can happen through any medium, and for a given medical setting, it will occur mostly through the contaminated hands of the medical staff and other people that are working in the hospital. It is therefore, recommended to these people to wash their hands, using different alcohol-based hand rubs in order to avoid the transmission of the bacteria and pathogens. The nursing staff is strictly required to follow these medical instructions so as to prevent the transmission of the pathogens, which will further save the lives of the people (Zhang, 2015).
This report highlights the major exposures to this spread on acquired infection, how to curb the means through educating the public as well as suggesting more protective measures that will gear towards safe and secure health care deliveries to its clients. It aims at attaining safe and conducive environment with better skill to handling patients and the tools and equipment in a health setting.
The study will cut through three levels of significance which were theoretical significance, award significance and practical significance. For theoretical significance, the study exposed the researcher into a learning experience where the theoretical class work were put into practice and appreciate the accumulated knowledge for application in other similar activities of this kind as well as for further studies.
Secondly, this research is believed to play a significant role to the award of marks for my academic excellence as a qualified professional in the field of nursing. Thirdly, this study will iron out the key issues related to the source of acquired infection in a health delivery among the nurses and rationally bring out suggestions and solution that will help end the menace in all health care delivery nurse setting.
It will help address the problems and consequences that have been always neglected saving lives of individual and strengthening the confidence to walking into the facility for health care services by its clients. Moreover, it will be a tool that the world health organization as a health head would refer to proper formulate strategies and effective Health education messages to help solve the problem and improve health for all.
Research question
Many a times, it might happen that wrong research questions are formulated and as a result, the entire research becomes directionless. It is therefore necessary to select the right set of research questions and accordingly, carry out the further research. PICO which stands for Patient Problem or Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome is the right format for generating a good research question.
Population or the patient problem can be known after identifying the key problem in a given medical situation. One can even collect the data of the patient's complaint, age, previous ailment, race, current medication, health status and sex (Kaye, 2011). Intervention refers to the ways through which the treatment plan will be formulated in order to treat the patient. It will include the adjunctive therapy, diagnostic test, and medication plan and treatment procedure. The third component, which is the comparison refers to comparing of the different treatment and intervention options. The physicians after analysing the patient's health status need to select the best alternative for facilitating the best and effective medical approach.
Finally, the outcome refers to the end-result that we wish to obtain after applying this technique to a given patient. The treatments should be modified during the entire processing phase so as to address the changing needs of the patients.
Thus, in our case, the PICO formulated research question will be:
Population: The population will include all the patients that are admitted in a given hospital setting.
Intervention: To determine the effectiveness of using alcohol-based solution in hand hygiene to reduce nosocomial infection.
Comparison: The given intervention will be compared with the soap and water hand washing during hospitalization process.
Outcome: For a given a hospital setting, including medical surgical and intensive care floors, the effectiveness of using alcohol-based solution in hand hygiene should help preventing the transmission of the pathogens.
Importance to nursing
Nursing is a special field in health care that most interact with the sharp and dangerous objects within the facility. Also, with the fact that they spent more of their times in the wards expose them to the risks of acquiring infections from the clients or rather the patients.
Moreover, there role being to improve the lives of patients through medication there immediate role is challenge where patient my transfer the disease or rather the sickness from one patients to the other. Infection prevention therefore in this glance means a lot as it makes a comprehensive means to which all parties are covered (Kaye, 2011). It allows the nurses to achieve their mandate in health care deliver, improve their working style through use of protective gear against acquired infections hence their security and also save the lives of the patients
Review of literature
Infection prevention in healthcare is world health organizations’ (WHO) priority with its aim and objectives to prevent the noted acquired infections that are outcome of healthcare delivery. According to the study done by Zhang (2015), infection prevention is seen to play an effective role towards meeting the WHO standards.
With the research study taking a controlled cohort of one hundred and twenty female nursing professional training students, the findings recorded up to 20% decrease in the incidences of infection acquires problems in healthcare. It hence concluded that lack of adequate skills and knowledge by the health care providers and especially the training student nurses were the major source to the cause.
It concludes that the is need for continuous mentoring and education on the same will allow the health care nurses to gain more knowledge and appreciate the science behind infection prevention. Although other researcher have criticized this study for bias by not considering both male and female students as well as registered nurses to the cohort, suggestions have been quoted for future studies. Infection prevention is more than what nursing profession offers (Weston, 2013).
As defined by the world health organization, acquired infections are always twice as dangerous compared with the first hand infections. Acquired infection is attributed to lack of skill, equipment and knowledge to handling the situation. The relevance of this study is to bridge the gap that not only the female nurses are root to the acquired infection but rather there is need to consider both sides.
Other than the physical means to protect and preventing infection from transmission, scientists have noted a deadly microscopic infections transmission. A study has revealed some two resistant microscopic organism that can be dangerous especially in the wards or rather patient unit. This study therefore correlates to my study in that it is conducted in the intensive care unit to reveal how both male and female nurses respond to handling the patient with this problems.
It further show how this healthcare providers have grabbed the idea through the gained knowledge in training to reducing the transmission of this bacteria, (Hunskin, O Grady, & Zimmer, 2011). Having a study of 1200 participant both the patients and the health care providers for six months, the study concluded massive transmission through contact.
This study therefore gaps the missing link in the classification of the patient to reduce the transmission. Disinfectants such as alcohol pads were not capable to kill the bacteria and the only way to salvage the situation would be through adopting the use of protective gear. Use of nose masks, hand gloves, gowns, classifying and isolating the patients into different partitions would help reduce the incident of transmission (Hunskin, O Grady, & Zimmer, 2011).
The relevance of this study is to identify various means to handling the patients with thee MRSA and VRE infections towards saving individuals’ lives as well as reducing the risks while in the wards.
Another study by the national survey of practice in the US in preventing acquired infections in hospitals considered a four year study from 2005-2009. It is in this study that a critical study on prevent central line-associated blood stream infection, ventilator associated and the urinary tract infection on its patients.
While this study uses a random sample of 600 hospitals of both federal and veteran hospitals. The finding concluded that veteran hospitals are directed to the insight of infection prevention more than the federal hospitals. The negligence in the acquired infection prevention among the federal hospitals resulted from the mode of payments.
However, the study never went beyond to examine who the workers are in this facilities. This study therefore works to find out what the major reason that caused the negligence among the federal hospitals. The relevance of this study is that this study topic because it clearly depict those barriers that prudently combat the smooth adoption of infection prevention in a facility (Weston, 2013).
There have been researches that have concluded that, using alcohol-based hand rubs for preventing the transmission does turn out to be successful. It helps in creating a more hygienic environment and thereby, also avoids the spread of the pathogens. Hence, the nursing and other medical staff need to keep their hands neat and clean in their day-to-day routine practices.
Further, it has also been proved scientifically that, the pathogen counts do get reduced after using ethanol or n-propanol alcohol-based hand-rub solutions. The nurses will be coming into direct contact with the patients for the purpose of routine check-up, taking blood samples, and even injecting syringes for the medical purpose. Hence, they will be required to keep their hands clean and free from bacteria and other pathogens (Zhang, 2015). It will help them in carrying out their tasks smoothly, and at the same time, will also ensure preventing of transmission of bacteria.
Conclusion
We have observed evidences that hand-hygiene is the best practice to keep the hands neat and clean and prevent any further transmission of bacteria. The medical organization should provide necessary training to the nursing staff and should even provide live demonstrations so that they can understand the proper usage of the alcohol-based hand-rubs. The organization should monitor the application of the hand hygiene techniques and take the necessary feedbacks from the patients. There is a need for an alignment of leadership on this intervention from the top-level management, to the Middle-level Managers to the ground-level Nursing staff.
References
Hunskin, W., O Grady, N., and Zimmer, L. (2011). Intervention to reduce transmission of resistant bacteria in intensive care. Amsterdam: Syngress/Elsevier Science.
Zhang, R. (2015). Investigating the prevention of hospital-acquired infection through Standardized teaching ward rounds in clinical nursing. Philadelphia: Saunders.
Weston, D. (2013). Fundamentals of infection prevention and control. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Kaye, K. (2011). Infection prevention and control in the hospital. Philadelphia: Saunders.
