Policy Analysis Essay 2022

Running head: POLICY ANALYSIS
Policy Analysis
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
Health care related infection is one of the most common source adverse outcomes for the
patients suffering from various type of diseases and in most of the cases the infection is
reported in the hospital care setting. The health care related infections (HAI) among the
patients is very crucial to control in a proper manner as HAI can also cause various other
adverse events among the patients. It is recommended, in order to prevent such conditions in
the health care settings, there must be proper policies and procedures and each of the
hospitals and health care organizations are liable to secure the health condition of the patients
by implementing those policies and they have to follow all the guidelines for the infection
prevention process as well. In order to prevent such conditions in the health care settings, the
states of the Australia have structures a few policies and guideline in their respective states as
well. Therefore, it is quite evident that, the main goal of those policies is to prevent the health
care related infections in the hospitals (NSW Health , 2017).
In this essay, the infection control policy of the New South Wales and the policy
guidelines of Tasmania regarding the infection control are discussed and compared in a brief
manner. The main goal of the NSW infection control policy and the Tasmania Infection
Control Guidelines is to ensure the health and safety of the all patients. This infection control
strategy of the NSW is completely based on the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000
and according to this act, all the employees of the hospital are liable to provide safe health
care environment to the patients. On the other hand, the Tasmanian Infection control policy
introduced the Tasmanian Infection Prevention and Control Unit (TIPCU) in the health care
system of the Tasmania in order to develop a procedure to identify the possible source of
infection.
Comparison between Two Policies

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Infection Control Policy of NSW
The Government of NSW also constructed an infection control policy in order to
mitigate the effect of the infections in the clinical care settings of the hospitals and other
health care facilities of the states. Unlike the Tasmanian Infection control policy, the NSW
infection control policy has a two-tiered approach. In the first tier, there are various
precaution methods that are mainly designed for the care of the patients without considering
the infection status of the patients. These precaution practices are referred to as Standard
Precautions and it helps in constituting the minimum acceptable level of infection control
practices. The second tier includes the specific precautions that are only applicable for the
special patients and these are known as Additional precautions. Hence, it can be said that, the
infection control policies of the two states are different in terms of the structural formulation
as well (NSW Health , 2017).
Another important policy of the NSW infection control policy is associated with the
hand hygiene practices among the health care professionals and this policy is quite similar
with the policies of the Tasmania. Like Tasmania, it is also suggested that the use of soaps
and running water is very crucial for the hand hygiene practice. However, the hand hygiene
practice of the NSW is better as there in this policy, the clothing practices of the health care
providers are also considered and the frequency, duration , type of work are also considered
in this policy unlike the Tasmanian Policy for infection control. As part of the hand hygiene
practice, the drying of hands are also considered in the policy of NSW and on the contrary,
the Tasmanian policy has no such considerations as well. Along with this the use of
dispensers that is dispensers along with the disposable cartridges and nozzles are preferred in
the policy of NSW unlike the policy of Tasmania (NSW Health , 2017). Not only this, but the

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policy of the NSW also promote the hand hygiene practices of the family members of the
patients as it is reported in the study of Banach et al.(2015), that the infection can be
transmitted through the visitors of a hospitals as well. From the policy of the Tasmania, it
can be said that there is no such considerations in the policy of the Tasmania. Therefore, both
the policies emphasizes on the use of hand gloves during the performances of various
activities in the health care settings. The use of face masks, gowns are also mentioned in the
policies of NSW and on the contrary, the policies of Tasmania do not promote such practices
in their policies as well. In both the policies, the use of disinfectant is mentioned in a well
manner (NSW Health , 2017).
The use of flash sterilization is also mentioned in the policy of NSW unlike the
infection control policy of Tasmania. According to the study of Gupta, Vanathi and Tandon
(2015) it is reported that the use of flash sterilization in the hospital care settings is one of the
crucial methods of minimizing the infections in the health care settings. Therefore, this
technique is mainly used in case of emergency situations in the clinical care settings.
While analysing the advantages of the policies it can be said that, the policy for
controlling infection in NSW is much advanced in terms of the policy considerations,
multimodal approaches of infection control, different type of infection control strategies as
well. As a whole it can be said that, the policy of the NSW for controlling infection in the
health care setting is more complex and more effective in nature than that of the policy of
Tasmania. On the other hand, while analysing the policy of Tasmania, it can be said that, it is
very advantageous to have an easy infection control policies in the context of implementation
of the policies as well. However, lack of modified and advanced technologies can be
identified as one of the disadvantages of the Tasmanian Infection control policy (NSW
Health , 2017)..