Infection Control Policy for Healthcare Associated Infections

Running head: INFECTION CONTROL POLICY
INFECTION CONTROL POLICY
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INFECTION CONTROL POLICY
Introduction:
Healthcare associated infections or the HAIs are one of the most common as well as
significant and preventable patient safety issues today. Data has shown that every year in the
nation of Australia, about 180000 patients are seen to suffer from various kinds of healthcare
associated infections. Such infections not only prolong the length of stays of the patients in the
hospitals but they are also seen to cause tremendous physical and mental suffering along with
patient dissatisfaction and loss of trust of patients from the healthcare professionals about their
expertise (Manning et al., 2016). They occupy for about 2 million hospital bed days. Studies
opine that the impact of HAIs can include increase in patient morbidity as well as mortality risks
as well as prolonged hospital stays, reduction in the quality of life of patients and additional costs
for consumable items used for the infection of the patients (Hall et al., 2015). Thereby such
infections are seen to result in generation considerable as well as economic burden for both the
healthcare systems and even the individual. For similar reasons only, the Australian Guidelines
for the Prevention and Control of Infection in Healthcare that has been published by the National
Health and Medical Research Council which had been recently updated in the year 2017. This
assignment would mainly analyze the policy and discuss the role of nurses in ensuring infection
control.
Effective healthcare advocacy through the policy:
The most of the important role of the nurses is healthcare advocacy. Healthcare advocacy
is defined as the protection, promotion as well as optimization of the health and the abilities and
even prevention of illness and injury along with alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis
and treatment of the human response. The nurse also requires promoting and advocating for the

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INFECTION CONTROL POLICY
rights, health as well as safety of the patients. Therefore, nurses need to ensure that each and
every healthcare professionals along with themselves need to ensure that they analyze and follow
each and every guideline set by the professional bodies and ensure prevention of negative health
outcomes of patients (Travers et al., 2015). Therefore, one of their role is to promote the
application of the each and every guidelines that are mentioned in the healthcare policies after
critically analyzing them and then ensuring that every member of the multi-disciplinary team to
follow the guidelines sufficiently. The patients should also be educated about maintaining
hygiene in the healthcare wards to prevent themselves from falling prey to the infections.
Detailed knowledge about the microorganisms:
The most interesting feature of this policy is that it had incorporated a huge amount of
information that is based on a detailed exhibition of knowledge about the infectious bacteria. The
specific topics that the policy had covered are the chain of infection, factors that help in
influencing healthcare associated infection along with routes of transmission and many others.
These data that are included in the policy is found to be extremely helpful for the healthcare
professionals who would be following the policy (van den Dool et al., 2016). These data would
help in gaining a detailed insight about the ways by which patients might get infected, how the
germs grown among the patients, their ways of transmission and others such knowledge would
help them in rationalizing their interventions making them understand how the strategies would
be helpful in preventing the spread of the disorders. Developing the knowledge of the nursing
professionals help them in developing their confidence in ensuring infection prevention
successfully.