Memo Regarding the Healthcare Associated Infections

Running head: MEMO
Memo
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s name

MEMO1
To: Healthcare Supervisor
From: Student name
Date: 29th February 2020
Subject: To use the ethical principles of the Belmont report in the healthcare research in order to
understand the concerns of participants regarding the healthcare associated infections.
Problem
Every day, from around 31 hospitalized patients, there is one patient who gets at least one
healthcare-associated infection (HAI) (CDC, 2020). According to a 2015 survey, 3% of
hospitalized people or visiting the hospital for shot amount of stay suffered from one or more
HAI. In 2015, there were cases of 687,000 HAIs in several acute care hospitals of United States
(Al-Tawfiq & Tambyah, 2014). In that year, around 72,000 patients died as a result of HAIs.
When conducting a research the human subjects or the participants came in contact with HAIs.
40 people were selected for the study, and 22 people came in contact with healthcare-associated
infection. The participants suffered one of the HAIs - central line-associated bloodstream
infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and ventilator-associated pneumonia
(CDC, 2020). Among these there are surgical site infections also. According to the reports from
the healthcare evaluation, it has been estimated that participants are not taken care appropriately
and no strategy is applied to reduce the frequency of the HAI’s.
Analysis
The major reason for the healthcare organization facing this high frequency of HAIs is
because the staff members and investigators are not following proper ethical principles and

MEMO2
prevention strategies (Hefzy, Wegdan & Wahed, 2016). The non-maleficence principle of
medical ethics ensures that the participants’ are safe from any injury or damage and states that it
is the duty of the healthcare providers and the investigators to ensure that (Kadivar, Manookian,
Asghari, Niknafs, Okazi & Zarvani, 2017). But, the frequency of the HAI shows that the
healthcare organization does not follow the non-maleficence principle. Thus, in order to reduce
the frequency of the HAI and enable the nurses to take care of the participants, it is necessary
that ethical principles from the Belmont report be followed in the organization.
The Belmont report concerns with the ethics and health care research (Department of
Health, 2014). The main objective of the Belmont report is to protect the people and the
participants who involved in a healthcare system or in a clinical trial or research studies. There
are three basic principles of the Belmont report – respect for the person, beneficence and justice.
Respect for the person – It states that when taking care of the patient, people should be treated
as autonomous agents and people who have little amount of freedom should be given protection.
Like when people have HAIs, they are restricted from moving around, they have diminished
autonomy for which it is necessary that the nurses respect those people. An autonomous
individual is a person who is proficient enough to plan their individual objectives and of acting
under the direction of such consideration. Though, every individual is not capable to take their
own decisions because of their diseases like HAI, psychological issues, or situations that
severely restrict their freedom. This people are in the need of protection. Thus, the healthcare
members should provide protection from HAI to those 1 in 31 participants because they are not
capable to protect themselves from the infections. The verdict that any person is lacking liberty
should be timely rechecked and will differ in various circumstances (US Department of Health
and Human Services, 1979).