Infection Control in Healthcare: Risks, Controls, and Procedures

This article discusses infection control in healthcare, including the risks and controls for common infections in the workplace. It also covers the importance of having proper procedures and management controls in place for infection control, as well as the hierarchy of controls and the implications of client confidentiality on infection control.

Running head: HEALTHCARE
HEALTHCARE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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What is a communicable disease transmission?
Communicable diseases are referred as diseases which can spread from one infected
person to other. The infectious agents involved are bacteria and viruses. These pathogens
integrate in to the body, multiplies to grow in number and release toxins that causes harm to
the body cell function, and sometimes leads to death of the person. The transmission of
communicable disease is the method of transfer of the infection from one to another (Ismail
et al., 2016). There are various modes of transmission of pathogen such as airborne, direct
contact, or indirect contact like droplets. the following are the modes of transmission of
communicable disease:
 Droplet transmission from infected persons sneezing, spitting or coughing.
 Food or water borne transmission due to ingestion of food or water
contaminated with pathogens or using unclean utensils.
 Direct contact transmission by touching and indirect contact transmission by
sharing things with the infected person such s towel, clothes etc.
 Airborne transmission through respiratory tract because of their presence in
the air.
 Vector transmission via insects as some infectious agents breed inside their
body.
 Body fluid transmission due to usage of used or contaminated needles,
unprotected intercourse (Worby, Lipsitch and Hanage 2017)
.

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Describe 5 common infection risks for your workplace and detail the control
measures.
The five common infectious risks are:
1. Common cold (Rhinoviruses/Coronavirus): It can easily spread from an
infected person to other in a workplace by physical contact or through air via
sneezing or coughing.
2. Pneumonia (Streptococcus pneumoniae): effects the lungs. Symptoms are
coughing, mucus production, breathing problem, fever or chest pain. It spreads
via contaminated air, coughing, sneezing and if not maintain proper hygiene.
3. Tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis): effects the respiratory tract,
mainly lungs. Symptoms are coughing up blood and mucus, fever, weight loss
and night sweat.
4. Measles (Rubeola virus): it is spread through contaminated air from one
person to the other, and from sneezing or coughing of an infected person and it
shows symptoms like fever, rashes, body pain and also includes respiratory
tract involvement.
5. Acute infectious conjunctivitis: it is an inflammation of the conjunctiva of the
eye. It is caused by bacteria, virus, fungi or parasites. Symptoms are itching of
eyes, discharge of mucus, swollen lymph nodes and sometimes blurring of
vision (Zivich, Gancz and Aiello 2018).
Control measure:
The measures to control the spread of these diseases are as follows:
 by inspiring hand washing with soap or alcohol based sanitizer.
 employees must cover their face while sneezing or coughing.
 sick leave policies can be proposed for people suffering

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 encourage vaccination for the diseases.
 Place the person with infections in separate room.
 Disposal of contaminated surplus safely
 Avoid using used items
 Avoid open wounds
 Use washed or sterilized things such as utensils, towels etc.
 Proper education about the disease and safety measures among
the staffs (Lewinsohn et al., 2017).
People working within health care will come from a variety of backgrounds, with
varying skills and abilities. When communicating infection control procedure to
staff members what are the literacy considerations you would need to make?
While communicating the infection control procedure to the healthcare staffs who
belong to different background, the literacy consideration should be followed:
 Teaching English language to avoid the communication gap and it will help them to
understand the condition and he infection control process in a better way.
 Focusing on their knowledge about the disease and its control practice. As they
belong to various backgrounds they might not have much knowledge about the
disease and its cause and control. So they need to be provided with proper knowledge
for better outcome (Batterham et al., 2016).
 Skills of these staffs will vary as they have been practicing in different fields, their
skills and abilities should be considered as it might happen that these skills come out
to be helpful for the control and prevention of the disease.

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 It is important to teach them about various technologies and strategies that are used to
address a patient or a condition of infectious disease as they may not have proper idea
about it (Batterham et al., 2016).
Outline the process for training staff in infection control
Steps that needed to be taught while training staffs in infection control:
 Proper knowledge about the disease causing pathogen and their routes of transmission
and infection.
 Hygiene maintenance; how and when to use alcohol base sanitizer, soap and water
and the time duration.
 Use of personal protective equipment(PPE)
 Proper application of regular and transmission based provisions.
 Sustain a hygienic, safe setting as well as precise practices and use of chemicals while
daily and terminal cleaning.
 Vaccinating the staffs
 Practice of using
 strategies and medication in order to control the infection.
 Providing proper documentation and reporting the details of the disease to the
department of health (Markovic and Brusaferro 2017).
Describe three common ways of monitoring infection control. Physical examination: infected person’s physical appearance and disease
symptoms can be used to monitor the infection control. It can be used to see
the progress of the patient and the result of the treatment procedure that is

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provided. The symptoms of the diseases will be observed and if the treatment
is provided in proper manner, it will be reflected in the physical examination.
 Injection: vaccinations are used in cases of infectious diseases to bring it in
control or lower the effect of the toxin. They can be provided to the infected
person and also administered to others in order to avoid further infection.
 Blood sampling: the blood sample from the infected person can be extracted
and observed in order to study the virus and the toxin released. And it can also
be used to check the progress of the medication and the vaccination. The blood
sampling will help to monitor the progress of the treatment as the toxin level
will be found to be decreasing in the blood (Stoové 2018).
Explain the hierarchy of controls.
The hierarchy of control is as follows:
 Elimination and substitution: it is the most effective of all the measures and it is
found to be very difficult to implement in a present procedure. It is used to remove the
infection and its risk totally from the workplace. The elimination process uses
telemedicine for initial screening process to keep the infected patient away from the
workplace (Dosman et al., 2015).
 Engineering controls: preferred over PPE and administrative control measures for the
worker in the workplace to avoid exposure. They are used to remove the infection
before it effects the workers, such as airborne infection isolation chamber, vacuum
shrouds.

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 Administrative controls and PPE: the administrative control and PPE are frequently
used with the carried out process when the disease is not in control properly. These
procedures help the worker to protect themselves from the infection and has been seen
that they are less effective when compared to other measures. These measures
involve, sick employee policy, proper hand hygiene etc. (Dosman et al., 2015).
Explain the implications of client confidentiality on infection control.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) Code of Ethics focuses on maintaining a
patient’s confidentiality. According to AMA, a client’s infection related information should
not be shared with everyone, except the family members and the healthcare facilities
(Sanggaran, Haire and Zion 2016). The implication of confidentiality is important because:
 Patients are concerned about the humiliation and discrimination that takes place after
others witness about the infection and related condition, such as in cases of HIV
patients.
 They want the knowledge about who has the access to their medical information.
 It is important, as it promotes comfortable situation for a patient, so that he can share
his personal information and details to the healthcare facilities.
 An infection control system with a better privacy mechanism will stimulate public
sureness and trust (Sanggaran, Haire and Zion 2016).
Describe why it is important to have procedures and management controls in place
for infection control.
It is important to maintain proper procedures and management to avoid infection
transmission in workplace. The pathogens spread from an infected person to other with the
help or air and other means such as physical contact or sharing personal things such as

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utensils, towels etc. As workplace is an enclosed area, where number of people work
together, interacting in close immediacy with each other, the risk of the spread of infectious
disease increases. So it is important to control the spread as it would harm a large number of
people and also the production and efficiency of the work. From a single infected person, the
pathogen can be spread to the entire population in the workplace and it may result to a
disease outbreak and effect huge population. To avoid such scenario, the proper measures to
avoid the infection spread should be followed and if require provide leave to the infected
person (Hansen, Zimmerman and Mortel 2017).

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