Health Care-Associated Infection Prevention in Hospitalized Pneumonia Patients

📌Category: Health, Health Care, Illness
📌Words: 1016
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 22 April 2022

Hospitals are facilities that individuals enter for a multitude of reasons, being admitted through the emergency department for emergent needs, for a scheduled surgery, or just for treatments and can be either for short term needs or, if the issue is serious enough, for long term needs and according to the World Health Organization, hospitals should reflect the needs and values of the communities in and around them (World Health Organization, 2020). Regardless, hospitals are a feeding ground for infections which can lead to patients becoming susceptible to health care-associated infections (HAIs). Wiemken, T. L., et. al (2020) state that HAIs are a common and often preventable complications of hospital care. Throughout the years, an estimated 3.2% of hospitalized patients that ended up contracting a health care-associated infection. Wiemken, T. L., et. al (2020) continue to say that with the gradual increase in cases, this makes HAIs the leading cause of death in the hospital and excess health care expenses in the United States. The American Nurses Association (2020) requires that registered nurses create a safe and healthy workplace and promotes sustainable global environmental health policies and conditions that focus on prevention of hazards to people and the natural environment. Minimizing infections was made as important goal in the National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) for the hospital program by The Joint Commission (2022) which strives to “Reduce the risk of health care-associated infections” (p.7)

Nurses serve a major role in ensuring patients are safe and free of infection due to being with the patient more than any other health care profession. Interventions include proper hand hygiene and collaboration with the whole health care team. The purpose of this paper is to speak on ways to reduce the risk of health care-associated infections in the hospital in the case of the 10-year-old child admitted to the hospital with pneumonia through hand hygiene and collaboration with the health care team.

NPSG.07.01.01 Reduce the Risk of Health Care-Associated Infections (HAI)

The 10-year-old child with pneumonia is not only at a greater risk for infections because of their age, they are also at a greater risk for infections because of their condition of pneumonia. As outlined by The Joint Commission (2022) in NPSG.07.01.01, health care professionals must comply with either the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hand hygiene guidelines and/or the current World Health Organization (WHO) hand hygiene guidelines. The reasoning behind doing so is because each year millions of individuals acquire an infection while receiving care, treatment, and services in a health care organization. Consequently, health care-associated infections (HAIs) are a patient safety issue affecting all types of health care organizations (p.7). Two ways to prevent the acquiring of health care-associated infections is to improve compliance of proper hand hygiene guidelines and to collaborate with the health care team to follow categories IA, IB, and IC for infection control. 

Improving Compliance with Hand Hygiene Guidelines

Proper hand hygiene includes the use of soap and water and/or the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers is the generalized use for infection control amongst hospitals. Roshan, R., et al, (2020) address that a few potential reasons for low compliance to hand hygiene is the health care workers fail to realize that they are carrying organisms in their hand because pathogens are not visible and that health care workers perceive that they are less likely to contract a health care-associated infection without regards to the impact of patients. The World Health Organization (2021) has a resource entitled the “My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene” tool. The My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene is an approach that all health care workers should take before and after caring for each and every patient. The approach recommends that health care workers clean their hand before touching a patient, before clean/aseptic procedures, after bodily fluid exposure/risk, after touching a patient, and after touching patient surroundings. In the case of the 10-year-old child hospitalized with pneumonia, a nurse would implement hand washing before introducing themselves to the child, after assessing the child lungs, and after exiting the child’s room. By implementing “My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene”, Roshan, R., et al (2020) saw that there was a reduction in the number of HAIs in March and April 2020 and assumed that the dip in HAIs was associated with the improvement in hand hygiene practices in the recent months. 

Health Care Team Collaboration

It is of the utmost importance to collaborate with all members of the health care team to ensure the best outcome of the patient. Within the hospital, the health care team can collaborate to implement administrative responsibilities that coincide with the Center of Disease Controls Infection Control and has three categories, IA, IB, and IC, that incorporate the implementation of infection control. Category IA speaks to incorporating the prevention of infectious agents that coincide with safety programs, Category IB requires that preventing the transmission of infectious agents a priority for the health care organization, and lastly, Category IC speaks to developing and implementing policies and procedures to ensure that patient equipment is cleaned between patients. 

Adams and Feudale (2018) found that high quality patient outcomes require effective communication and collaboration among all disciplines. Additionally, Aschcroft and colleagues (2017) state that the use of standardized communication improves coordination of care guidelines which shows that with the combination of team communication and collaboration, there is a potential for enhances patient safety and improvement in patient care outcomes. Outside of collaboration amongst the health care team that directly works with patient (nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists, etc.), Kobayashi, K et al (2017) formed an Infection Control Team (ICT) that consists of 9 doctors, 3 nurses, 2 pharmacists, 1 clinical microbiologist, 1 radiologist, 1 medical engineering technician, 2 physical therapists, and 3 clerks. The Infection Control Team is responsible for numerous objectives, but the two most important objectives that they focus on are infection prevention and control and support for treatment of health care-associated infections. The case of the 10-year-old child, the utilization of communication amongst their health care team, along with the implementation of an Infection Control Team would significantly decrease the likelihood of the child contracting any health-care associated infection within the hospital setting drastically. 

Conclusion

As seen in literature, the risk of health care-associated infections can lead to a multitude of complications but is quite preventable with the utilization of proper hand hygiene practices and the incorporation of the whole health care team along with the possibility of implementing an Infection Control Team. The 10-year-old child hospitalized with pneumonia is at the greatest risk for acquiring a health care-associated infection and must be protected at all costs by the utilization of the above techniques.

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