Infection Control
Infection Control
1. Discuss how preventing healthcare-associated infections requires both a change in behavior and a change in the organization’s culture.
Preventing healthcare-associated infections requires a change in individual stakeholders’ behavior starting from the patient to the, interns, nurses and the overall hospital managers and physicians. This is, according to Mehta, Gupta, and Ramasubban (2014), is because without personal commitment to change behavior, it may be difficult to ensure compliance with patient safety regulations and policies of a healthcare organization or hospital (p. 157).
On the other hand, a change in the organization’s culture is important in that it helps entrench or establish customs and norms that are socially acceptable to everyone in the healthcare facility. A cultural change thus reinforces the efforts made by the healthcare organization to prevent HAIs by making it customary for every member of the organization to follow and adhere to safety measures. Once established and it becomes part and parcel of everyday work and operations of an organization, it is a lot easier to abide by. Since an organization’s culture reflects its fundamental values and principles or ethos, having s culture that is rooted in patient infection prevention in a hospital facility helps ensure that there is compliance with patient safety measures and policies. According to Loveday et al. (2014), some of the evidence-based practices for keeping healthcare related infections include hand hygiene through proper hand washing, hospital environmental hygiene, use of personal protective equipment, safety use and disposal of sharps and catheter insertion selection and maintenance (pp. 3-4).
2. Discuss for a change to work, healthcare providers must work in teams and hold each other accountable at every level.
According to Loveday et al. (2014), team work is fundamental as it ensures that each and every person’s activities are monitored to make sure that there are minimal errors. From the video, it is evident that the student nurse made errors and mishandled the patient Whitney without any protection measures and the patient died because nobody was around to monitor him. Furthermore, holding each other accountable is important for ensuring that high standards of care are maintained when dealing patients to avoid reinfections or acquisition of new infections in hospital facilities.
3. Explain if leaders make zero-percent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) a personal goal, how others will likely follow.
Leadership plays a significant role of being role models to those whom they manage. When health care organizational leaders make it a personal goal to ensure zero-percent HAIs, they are likely to be emulated by their juniors and hence promote patient safety. Healthcare organization leaders also influence what other employees of the organization do and believe in as the organization’s central policy. As Nelson et al. (2011) put it, “leaders play a pivotal role in hospital initiatives to improve quality” (p. 6).
4. Explain how encouraging others to embrace infection prevention protocols require effective communication skills, even in the face of confrontation.
Communication is important in clearly bringing to the attention those concerned the protocols for prevention of patient infections as it tends to clarify issues. Effective communication also helps to ensure that people within the healthcare organization are kept aware about the safety measures and policy guidelines. With a properly communicated plan in place, nurses and doctors are less likely to violate the infection prevention protocols than when they are not there at all. Moreover, effective communication helps to create awareness and more understanding among the members of the healthcare organization and thus prevents any differences on interpretation from occurring.
5. Which character was your favorite to play and why? The character of a registered nurse was my favorite since it would enable me to acquire more infection prevention strategies and ensure safety of my patients. According to Mehta, Gupta and Ramasubban (2014), HAIs is one of the most important safety concerns for both patients and healthcare providers as they are associated with high mortality or morbidity rates and longer hospital stays for patients (p.154). Hence, it is important for a person in the position of a registered nurse to take the necessary precautionary measures to ensure that their patients do not get infected due to the nurse’s own negligence and indifference to hygiene and safety protection while at work.
References
Loveday, H. P., Wilson, J. A., Pratt, R., Golsorkhi, M., ATingle, Bak, A., . . . Wilcoxc, M. (2014). National evidence-based guidelines for preventinmg healthcare-associated infections in NHS hospitals in England. Journal of Hospital Infection, 86(1), 1-70. Retrrived February 14, 2016, from http://www.his.org.uk/files/3113/8693/4808/epic3_National_Evidence-Based_Guidelines_for_Preventing_HCAI_in_NHSE.pdf
Mehta, Y., Gupta, A., & Ramasubban, S. (2014, March). Guidelines for prevention of hospital acquired infections. Indian Journal of Critical Care Medicine: Peer-reviewed, Official Publication of Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine, 18(3), 149-163. Retrieved February 14, 2016, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3963198/#!po=0.549451
Nelson, S., Stone, P. W., Sarah Jordan, M. P., HelenHalpin, Vanneman, M., & Larson, E. (2011). Patient safety climate: Variation in perceptions by infection preventionists and quality directors. nterdisciplinary Perspectives on Infectious Diseases, 2011, 1-7. Retrieved February 14, 2016, from http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/studies/pnice/pdf/Nelson.pdf
