How to safe guard patients against the spread of diseases?
Number one way, hand washing. Always gel in and gel out before entering and when exiting a patient's room.
What are Standard Precautions?
All patients not a on specific Isolation Precaution is considered 'Standard Precaution.' This means Isolating body substances. Always use clean gloves. Will you need a plastic gown to protect yourself from body fluid? Changing of equipment, correct hand hygiene, correct disposal of contaminated waste to eliminate spread of disease.
We have an ethical duty to protect ourselves and our patients from the spread of germs and disease.
Nosocomial Infection
Acquired during hospital stay, extended stay (rehab), outpatient clinics, and behavioral health institutions.
Environment: Air, patients visitors, health care workers, food, instruments-anyone or anything contaminated with infectious agent.
Therapeutic regimen: Drugs used to treat malignant or chronic diseases. These decrease patients resistance to infection; antimicrobial therapy kills of patients normal flora (good bacteria) is killed off, which encourages growth of resistant strains of microbes, i.e., MRSA methichillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus.
Equiptment:
Contamination during medical procedures:
Iatrogenic Infection
A nosocomial infection that results from a particular treatment or therapeutic procedure.
A patient may not develop symptoms of the illness until leaving health environment. This is still considered to be a nosocomial infection.
Community-Acquired Infection
A person who enters a health care facility with an infection.
Factors that Increase the Patients Potential for Nosocomial Infection
Age
Heredity
Nutritional Status
Stress
Inadequate rest & exercise
Health history
Inadequate defenses
Common Sites for nosocomial infection
The blood stream and urinary tract are the most common sites of nosocomial infection.
Microorganisms
Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms.
There are four major groups of microorganisms that are know to produce diseases:
Bacteria
Fungi
Viruses
Parasites and Prions
Means of Transmission
Direct or Indirect
Direct: Is when body fluids are touched directly from person-to-person.
In-Direct:
Formite = syringe or dressing.
Vehicle = food, water, drugs, blood.
Vectors = infected animals or insects.
Droplet = nose, mouth of an infected host.
Airbone = comes from evaporated residue left from droplet.
Immunodepressed/Immunocompromised
A person's body that does not adequately defends itself against disease.
HIV/AIDS
5th stage classified as AIDS
5th stage, 80%-90% die within 3 years.
Viral Hepatitis
HVA: fecal-oral
HVB: blood or body fluids
HVC: blood or body fluids. Often leads to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, or cancer of the liver. Has become the most common bloodborne infection in the USA.
HVD: blood or body fluids
HVE: fecal-oral
Standard Precautions
Tier 1: Standard Precaution
These precautions assume that all persons are highly infected with disease.
Tier 2: Transmission-based precautions
Universal precautions work for the protection of the worker. Airbone, droplet, iso, etc.
Antibody Defenses
The first line of defense against infection: The skin, the hair, the acidic condition of the stomach and the intestines.
The second line of defense against infection: The inflammatory response.
The third line of defense against infection: Antigen-antibody response.
Antibodies acquired by having a particular disease: Acquired immunity.
Natural active acquired immunity: Active production or receipt of antibodies.
There is currently less reason to be concerned about contracting HIV because there is improved treatment and the disease is no longer fatal.
FALSE
Hepatitis B and C are blood-borne viral infections. When you are caring for persons known to have either of these disease, use the following infection control techniques:
Wear gloves if you may come in contact with blood or body substances.
Wear goggles if there is a possibility of you being splashed with blood or body substances.
Explain the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 infection control precautions.
All health care workers must practice Tier 1 infection control methods at all times when working with patients. Tier 2 infection control practices specify the type of additional infection control methods to be used.
A person who has recently been infected with HIV may have no symptoms of disease, but is able to transmit HIV to another person.
TRUE
HIV, or the disease that it produces, is transmitted by direct or indirect contact with infected blood or body substances.
TRUE
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Regulates the manufacture and sale of medications to protect health of US citizens.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Receives data concerning infectious disease from all countries and compiles a report for every country.
World Health Organization (WHO)
Receives data concerning infectious diseases from all countries and compiles a report for every country.
The Joint Commission
Sets requirements for hospital safety and infection control practices.
The US Department of Health and Human Services
Controls disposal of medical waste.
The radiographer should always dress for the workplace with infection control in mind. This means that:
Clothing must be washable; fingernails must be kept short; shoes must be comfortable and have close toes; and no jewelry is worn except a wristwatch and wedding band.
Microorganisms that need a host cell to reproduce and are virtually unresponsive to antimicrobial drugs are:
Bacteria
When a person is in the incubation period of the disease process, the radiographer has not control over its transmission.
FALSE
The radiographer must use strict infection control measure that include blood and body substance precautions for:
Every patient who enters the diagnostic imaging department.
Blood and body substance precautions include:
Use of clean, disposable gloves for contact of the hands with blood or body; a mask and goggles if blood or body fluids may on your face; and a gown if the blood and body fluids may touch clothing for any patient care that may involve contact with blood or body fluids.
The most common means of spreading infection are:
Human hands.
The elements needed to produce an infection are a source, a host, and a means of transmission. An example of a source of infection might be:
A radiographer student who has a cold and comes to work.
A visitor in the hospital who has a "fever blister" on his or her mouth.
A patient who develops pneumonia.
A safety precaution that must be taken when disposing of used hypodermic needles and syringes is:
To place the syringe immediately after use with the uncapped needle attached directly into the contaminated waste receptacle provided.
Direct Contact
Touching contaminated material with hands.
Indirect Contact
Touching objects that have been contaminated with disease-producing microbes.
Droplet Contact
Contact with secretions transferred by sneezing, coughing, or talking.
Vehicle Contact
Ingesting contaminated water, food, drugs, or blood.
Airbone Contact
Inhaling air contaminated with infectious microbes.
When caring for a patient whom you know to be infected with HIV and who does not have AIDS, you use standard blood and body fluid precautions and:
Keep all information concerning the patient confidential.
Keep the patients chart in a place where it cannot be read by others.
The radiographer who has received a needle-stick injury is obliged to notify his or her supervisor at the end of the work day.
FALSE
Hand hygiene is to be used in the following situations by radiographers in the workplace.
Before caring for a patient.
After caring for a patient.
When preparing for invasive procedures.
If it is not possible to find a sink to wash hands it is safe to use alcohol-based hand rubs.
TRUE
The route of transmission of MRSA, VRE, VRSA, and ESBL is:
Direct Contact
When the radiographer is to enter the newborn nursery, he or she must do the following:
Always scrub his or her hands for 3 minutes.
Always clean the equipment with disinfectant solution.
The radiographer entering the room of a patient with tuberculosis must wear the following:
