Controlling Hospital-Acquired Infections

This assignment explores the strategies employed by hospitals to combat hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). It emphasizes the importance of surveillance systems, isolation protocols for patients with communicable diseases, meticulous hand hygiene practices, proper sterilization techniques for medical instruments, and personal protective equipment use. The text also highlights specific measures to control urinary tract infections (UTIs), a significant cause of morbidity and mortality associated with HAIs.

Running head: HOSPITAL ASSOCIATED INFECTIONS
Hospital Associated Infections
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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HOSPITAL ASSOCIATED INFECTIONS
Strategies Used by the Hospitals to Control Hospital Associated Infections (HAIs)
According to this post, a major safety concern for the patients and the health care
providers is the HAIs. This statement has been further opined by Mehta et al. (2015), HAIs is
the leading cause behind the increase cases of morbidity, mortality along with increased
hospital stay and these increase the cost of the treatment.
The post highlighted in detail the need of the surveillance system in hospitals for
HAIs. Usually hospitals employ robust surveillance system for contextualizing the HAI
burden. However, the post did not highlight that apart from employing the surveillance
system, hospitals also implement several other practical strategies in order to control the
spread of contagious infection among the health care professionals and patients during their
stay in the hospital (Lowman 2016).
Patients who are suffering from diarrhoea, neutropenia, skin rashes or other known
communicable diseases are kept in isolation in the intensive care unit. Neutropenic patients
when kept in isolation reduce the chances of getting infected with opportunistic infections.
This isolation strategy is also applicable for the patients who are at an increased risk of
getting affected with the nosocomial infections (Mehta et al. 2014).
Other strategies that are employed by the hospitals in order to control the HAIs
include proper observance of hand hygiene, proper sterilization of the hospital instruments
and tools and uniforms like gowns, gloves, surgical utensils and tools. This is followed by the
use of patient care instrument like mask which helps in the protection of airborne infection,
gloves which helps in the prevention of contact infection and laboratory coat which protects
from droplet precautions (Mehta et al. 2014).

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HOSPITAL ASSOCIATED INFECTIONS
The post could have mentioned about urinary tract infection (UTI), another major
cause of morbidity and mortality arising out of the HAIs. Strategies that are used to control
UTI include: proper sterilization of catheter before use, period replacement of the catheter,
aseptic insertion of catheter and maintenance of closed drainage system (Mehta et al. 2014).

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HOSPITAL ASSOCIATED INFECTIONS
References
Lowman, W., 2016. Active surveillance of hospital-acquired infections in South Africa:
Implementation, impact and challenges. South African Medical Journal, 106(5), pp.489-493.
Mehta, Y., Gupta, A., Todi, S., Myatra, S.N., Samaddar, D.P., Patil, V., Bhattacharya, P.K.
and Ramasubban, S., 2014. Guidelines for prevention of hospital acquired infections. Indian
journal of critical care medicine: peer-reviewed, official publication of Indian Society of
Critical Care Medicine, 18(3), p.149.