Infection Control

Introduction1

Article Summary2

Patients Health and HCW2

Initiatives for the Patients Safety3

Ways of Patient Involvement in Infections4

Multimodal Strategies4

Infection Control Issues and Guidelines4

Guidelines for Infection Control6

Critical Analysis7

Past Strategies7

Contemporary Modification in Infection Control8

Patients' Right to Know Their Rights8

Transmission Based Precautions9

Conclusion9

References10

Introduction

Hospital safety and hygiene is one of the major and foremost concerns of every health sector worker and managers. According to a research (Anonymous, 2007a), estimates show that the occurrence of cases, in which patients acquire infections from the hospitals, are high. Associations for health care-associated infections (HAI) assert that these cases occur in the developing and under developing countries, alike, although, risk factors are high in the developing countries due to the great amount of population and people admitted in the hospitals and shortage of staff.

Nosocomial infections are the ones which patients acquire only after their admission in the hospital; and which develop during their stay in the hospitals. Nosocomial infections are of two types:

Self-infection, auto-infection or endogenous infection

These are the infections which develop during the course of patient's stay in the hospital but their viruses are present in the patient at their admission times. These viruses do not exhibit themselves in any disease before or at the time of admission, but the lack of cleanliness and sterility in the environment exacerbates the risks and perils of these infectious agents.

Cross-contamination resulting from cross-infection

This is the type in which patients acquire agents of infection and contamination during their course of stay at the hospital. It can occur due to the contact with any other infective agent or cause. Practitioners remain in direct contact with many patients at one time. They might use the instruments of one case on another. Therefore, the need to clean and sterilize each and every instrument before using it every time is necessary for the basic safety and precaution of patients health, and reducing any factor which might lead to delirious consequences of cross-contamination (www.who.int).

Article Summary

This article by Curtis (2008) discusses the issues regarding safety of the patients and control of nosocomial infections. This article focuses and discusses about a further step in infections control, than the strategies devised for the health care workers. It argues about the involvement of patients and the introduction of interventions other than the pharmacological interventions, as a step towards a more sterile and non-infectious hospital environment. It discusses in detail about the routes which make the patients more vulnerable to the viruses and germs in the hospitals. It centers its main point of discussion on the assertion that along with the health care workers, patients can also play a vital role in the prevention and control of such infections. The article also discusses various practical implications of the infections control and how the hospitals can implement these for the better health of the patients and save them from acquiring other health issues. Main points of the article are as follows:

Patients Health and HCW

Primary relation of the patients, since the time of their hospital admission, occurs with the health care workers who attend ...