What Are The Different Types Of Isolation Precautions? Research Paper Sample

IMPORTANCE OF INFECTION CONTROL IN A HOSPITAL

There is a number of isolation precautions especially used in the hospital. These isolation precautions are greatly used in order to stop the process by which germs spread from one individual; to another. Isolation precautions help in protecting patients, families, visitors as well as the health care workers from the spread of the germs. There are many isolation precautions used. These include; contact precaution, droplet precautions and respiratory contact precaution (Siegel, Rhinehart, Jackson, & Chiarello, 2007).

Contact precautions

Patient under contact precautions are given a pink card as well as a green hand washing card. Contact precautions are institutes especially when preventing against those germs which re spread when individuals ends up touching people as well as the items in the hospital or even when people ends up being touched by the patient. Through touch microorganisms are able to spread from one individual to the other and therefore causing infection transmision (Siegel et al., 2007).

Precautionary measures and Personal protective equipment for contact precaution

Contact precaution should therefore be instituted appropriately in order to caution on the incidences of spreading microorganisms from one individual to the next. A number of activities need to be performed in order to prevent an individual from coming into contact with the microorganism. One of the precaution which need to be practiced by each and every individual is hand washing. Hand washing should be done before entering a hospital room and after entering the room. Hand washing should not only be done with water alone but should involve a combination of both alcohol cleaner or even soap and water. This will help in increasing on the chances of killing the microorganisms. A health care practitioner or a patient needs to put on gloves and a gown before having access to the room. After leaving the hospital room or ward one should take off the gloves as well as the gowns and put them in the trash. This should follow cleaning of the hand once again by using soap and water. Before taking anything into or out of the room appropriate precautionary measure need to be instituted to prevent infection transmission (Robert et al., 2006).

Droplet precaution

Another type of isolation precaution is the droplet precaution. Droplet precaution is mainly enhanced through the use of a Teal card. Germs have the ability of spreading through droplets. These droplets usually come as a result of patient sneezing, coughing, through cries or even as people have normal talks may cause transmission of infection (Siegel et al., 2007).

Precautionary measures and Personal protective equipment for droplet precaution

Precautions need to be taken in order to prevent the spread of infections. The heavy drops usually float for a very short distance before they land on other things or even people. Some of the examples of conditions commonly spread through droplets include the influenza, whooping cough as well as meningitis and colds. Individuals are required to cover their cough and sneezes in order to prevent the droplets from getting into contact with the individuals. Precautionary measure which needs to be taken in order to prevent transmission of microorganisms through the droplets individuals need to wash their hand before entering the wards, they are also supposed to use yellow masks before they enter in order to prevent the spread of droplets. After coming out of the rooms masks are supposed to be take off and disposed of in the trash. Cleaning of the hand should then be repeated (Siegel et al., 2007).

Importance of hand washing

Hand washing is very crucial especially in the prevention of some particular form of diseases. Hand washing should be properly done after an individual has used toilet, after changing of nappies, after handling of pets or animals as well as before and after taking food. This is very crucial since it helps in the spreading of microorganisms which ends up causing diseases such as gastroenteritis. Some of these diseases which comes about due lack of proper washing of hand are very vital and may end up resulting into death if they are not promptly treated. This show how important hand washing is especially by use of warm running water and the hands should be thoroughly washed for almost 10 seconds. When washing hands liquid soap is the best (Smith, 2009).
Failure to wash hands contributes to the spread of infectious diseases especially from one individual to the next. Some of the most common infections included the gastrointestinal infections, influenza as well as hepatitis A. These diseases are very deadly especially when they occur on young children as well as the elderly and all those who have very weak immune systems. After washing hands drying theme is also a very important practice. Drying of hands also reduces the spread of microorganisms in a very great way (Smith, 2009).
Washing of hands should be practiced on a routine basis especially under the following situations. Hand washing should take place before preparing food, before eating, when handling a raw food the decides to handle a cooked or ready to eat food, after an individual goes to the toilet or even change nappies and after smoking, mostly after having used an handkerchief, after handlings some rubbish or even after having gone to work in the garden (Montville, Chen, & Schaffner, 2002).
A number of precautions need to be observed when washing hands. This is done to make sure that the hands are washed in the right manner. Hands should be wetted with the warm water. A one dose of the liquid soap should be used which is bale to rather well for almost 15 to 2o seconds. One needs to rub hands together in a rapid motion across all the surfaces of the hands and the wrist in order to help in dirt removal. When washing hands one should remove rings as well as the watches (Smith, 2009).

What is the benefit to the patient and caregiver when following an infection control program?

Infection control programs are very important especially in the prevention of the infection to both the patient and care giver. These programs are important especially in increasing the safety of the patient. Health associated infections have been attributed to be the greatest cause of the infection especially among the hospitalized patient. Surgical sites makes up the second largest category of the infections which need to be prevented (Stone et al., 2009).
Prevention of these infections is usually through the infection prevention programs. Effective infection prevention programs are able to cause a reduction in the infections being transmitted to the patients and other individuals and hence helping in reducing the financial burden which might have used by the patient in the treatment of the infections. The main purpose of the programs is to be in a position to cause a great reduction of infection incidences of all the preventable diseases as well as deaths coming from infections. Most of the programs aim at preventing the health care associated infections as well as infections resulting from surgical operations as well as the ventilator associated pneumonia (Stone et al., 2009).
Those patients who participate in the infection prevention programs are able to reduce the incidences of infection in a great way. In order for the health care organization to benefit from these programs they are required to completely adhere to the federally or even the provincially developed infection control guidelines. They are also supposed to educates the patients as well as train their staff and other providers and volunteers on the matters of hand washing and promoting ones general hygiene (Stone et al., 2009).
Infection control also needs to be monitored so as to reduce occurrence of infections. These programs are very efficient and help in curbing the rate of infections being witnessed. The hospital also needs to examine and improve all the areas which might be a risk for infection control. A number of organizations are currently relying on these programs in order to have an improvement on the patient safety as well as ensure that the programs have adequate resources so to promote patient’s safety. Therefore, these programs have benefitted both the care giver as well as the patients buy helping prevent infections that are transmitted in the hospital set up. This indicates the importance of adopting these programs (Wenzel & Edmond, 2010).

References

Montville, R., Chen, Y., & Schaffner, D. W. (2002). Risk assessment of hand washing efficacy using literature and experimental data. International Journal of Food Microbiology, 73, 305–313. doi:10.1016/S0168-1605(01)00666-3
Robert, J., Renard, L., Grenet, K., Galerne, E., Dal Farra, A., Aussant, M., & Jarlier, V. (2006). Implementation of isolation precautions: Role of a targeted information flyer. Journal of Hospital Infection, 62, 163–165.
Siegel, J. D., Rhinehart, E., Jackson, M., & Chiarello, L. (2007). 2007 Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Health Care Settings. American Journal of Infection Control, 35.
Smith, S. M. S. (2009). A review of hand-washing techniques in primary care and community settings. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 18, 786–790. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2702.2008.02546.x
Stone, P. W., Dick, A., Pogorzelska, M., Horan, T. C., Furuya, E. Y., & Larson, E. (2009). Staffing and structure of infection prevention and control programs. American Journal of Infection Control, 37, 351–357.
Wenzel, R. P., & Edmond, M. B. (2010). Infection control: the case for horizontal rather than vertical interventional programs. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 14.