Case Study: Implementing and Monitoring Infection Control - HLTINF003

This assignment presents a case study analysis focused on HLTINF003, which involves implementing and monitoring infection prevention and control policies and procedures within a physiotherapy practice, Healthy Families. The case study outlines the issues of infectious hazards, the need for effective infection control, and the development of a comprehensive plan. The plan includes an introduction and meeting outline, a summary of infection control policies and codes of practice, hazard identification processes, and strategies for proper infection control at the workplace, including personal and environmental hygiene, patient screening, antibiotic stewardship, care communication, and patient communication strategies. It also encompasses a plan for support and coaching, including education sessions and a unit-based program, along with reporting processes and workplace procedures to manage risks and hazardous events. The assignment provides insights into identifying and mitigating infection risks, enhancing patient safety, and ensuring a safe and effective healthcare environment. The document references key literature and provides a detailed approach to improve infection control in a healthcare setting.

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IMPLEMENT AND MONITOR INFECTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL
POLICIES AND PROCEDURES
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Introduction and meeting outline
Being a Practice Manager for Healthy families (physiotherapy practice)
dealing with day-to-day physiotherapy practice and administration, it is been
identified that there is a loophole in the working process of infection control.
Irrespective of having a infection control policy and many procedures to control
infection, still the issue of infectious hazards exist in the workplace.
To overrule this issue this meeting involving Practice Manager, four
administrative officers and 4 physiotherapists aiming to establish effective infection
control at the workplace. The meeting will help to establish better hazard
identification, communication process, support and strategies to implement infection
control as well as better reporting system to deal with future risks and hazardous
events.
Summary of infection control policy and code of practice
The Australian government has developed a range of National standards,
guidelines and code of practice for prevention and control of healthcare workplace
infection. These policy and procedures help to implement quality and safety systems
that can improve healthcare quality. They aim to minimise the patient risk of
infection, worker safety and effective healthcare quality. The core principle of the
National Standards is to control infection and outline priorities of quality health
services (World Health Organization, 2016).
As a healthcare professional, one needs to follow the protocols and procedures
developed in the infection control policy to ensure personal as well as patient safety.
As per the code of practice, every healthcare professional needs to follow the five
basic infection control practices that are hand hygiene, standard precaution, personal
protective equipment, waste disposal, cleaning and disinfection to overrule infectious
situations and deliver quality service (World Health Organization, 2016).
Hazard identification
The sole focus of healthcare services remains is patient safety which
professionals are bound to deliver at any cost and occurrence of infectious situations
is a major drawback holding professionals in delivering patient safety. As a healthcare
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professional one needs to determine all possible infectious hazards to using following
identification processes before establishing goals and objectives to maintain infection
control.
 First and foremost use the Self-Assessment tool to assess the infection risk
professional can deliver to the patient. This self-assessment involves
identification of hand hygiene, employee health, waste management,
sterilization and disinfection of equipment’s, health facility cleanliness and
information, developing and delivering of parenteral medicines (Tille, 2015).
 Identify and report the status of environmental situations to ensure infection
control and management in healthcare settings. This involves determining
biohazards, ventilation systems, construction errors etc. (Murni, Duke,
Kinney, Daley & Soenarto, 2015).
 Identify the high-level risk of infection that is body contact mishandling, the
respiratory spread of infection and post-procedure spread of infection
(Dramowski, Whitelaw & Cotton, 2016).
Strategies for proper infection control at the workplace
As a practice manager, the following information on strategies to control
infection at the workplace shall help professional in delivering the best suitable
practice from their side in physiotherapy.
Personal hygiene strategies
As a healthcare physiotherapist or professional working in healthcare zone
should ensure all possible personal hygiene strategies like hand hygiene, using
personal protection equipment’s at time of procedures, maintain suitable contact
precautions with the patient and ensure self-cleaning before and after treatment
process (Tille, 2015).
Environmental hygiene strategies
Certain microorganisms have the capability to survive in environmental
conditions for months and thus they can transmit from one person to another as soon
as they come in contact. Therefore, regular housekeeping tasks should be prioritized
to ensure proper infection control. The regular housekeeping of the healthcare area
shall ensure the elimination of these stubborn infections (Percival, Suleman, Vuotto &
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Donelli, 2015).
Screening of the patient
Any physiotherapy treatment should only be performed after screening patient.
This screening involves the identification of vital signs of infection. This will ensure
control over the transmission of infection from one patient to another (Schlossberg,
2015).
Antibiotic stewardship
The overuse or misuse of antibiotics can lead to the development of
contracting infections where the patient can become antibiotic resistant becoming
infection spread agents. Therefore, a proper surveillance program is essential to
ensure proper use of antibiotics and other medications in the workplace (Tille, 2015).
Care communication and coordination
The lack of communication and coordination amongst the healthcare
professional shall lead to surgical site infection transmission. All the healthcare
activities must be timely communicated from one department to another with, further,
assigning the accountability of duty from one professional to another in a proper
manner (Diekema & Pfaller, 2015). Sax & Clack (2015) opine a healthcare
communication tool that is named as SBAR tool. This SBAR involves a format for
transferring information from one professional to another that involves s-situation, b-
background, a-assessment, and r-recommendation about the patient. This tool can
ensure safe handling of infectious situations within the workplace because by using
this tool; professionals can easily communicate essential information regarding
infections.
Patient communication strategies
According to Quinn et al. (2015) studies, patient’s good knowledge of
infection, its cure and precautions also help to prevent a possible spread of infection
in healthcare zone. Therefore, patient communication tools like infection information
poster shall be implemented to further support infection control. These posters will
describe information about possible infections, their harm and necessary precautions
that patient needs to take in their physiotherapy treatment.
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Plan for support and coaching for implementation of infection control strategies
As a practice manager, following processes shall work to provide support and
coaching to all physiotherapist and administrative professionals in Healthy Families
workplace to ensure effective infection control.
Education sessions
A weekly education session by Practice Manager will be conducted to educate,
inform and update the knowledge regarding infection control processes, their
implementation and updating latest information to ensure up-to-date safety in
workplace area (Schlossberg, 2015). These regular sessions shall improve your
knowledge and understanding required for better management of workplace safety.
Unit-based program
It is a safety program where each physiotherapy treatment unit shall have its
own ‘infection prevention expert’ who will regularly guide the professional as well as
the patient about infection prevention and control. These experts will directly function
under the guidance of Practice Manager in the health and safety department of
organisation (Schlossberg, 2015).
Reporting process and workplace procedures to deal with risks and hazardous
events
Professionals as well as patients to ensure proper workplace management of
infection control and reporting of possible infection should follow the below-provided
steps: - (Herzig et al. 2016).
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Conclusion
This plan developed by Practice Manager to assess the possible infections,
strategies to manage and control infection, support guidelines and innovative
reporting system shall possibly work to overcome the existing issue of infection
mismanagement in the workplace of Healthy families organisation. The professionals
can truly implement their code of practice and infection control policy regulations by
following this plan of infection control and workplace safety. This can possibly help
to achieve workplace safety, quality service and harmless physiotherapy services in
this organisation.
Every physiotherapist should perform proper
screening of entering patient and report any
possible sign or symptom of infection before
admitting the patient.
PATIENT SCREENING
Every administrative office should ensure that
regular workplace analysis is performed on daily
basis by workers. They should report any possible
sign of infection directly to Practice Manager.
WORKPLACE ANALYSIS
AND REPORTING
Every admitted patient should give their feedback
in a questionnaire form provided by their team
member. This questionnaire form should involve
questions reporting about workplace safety, quality
and healthcare service. The feedback form by each
and every patient needs to be analysed by
Administrative officer directly reporting to the
Practice Manager.
PATIENT FEEDBACK
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References
Books
Schlossberg, D. (Ed.). (2015). Clinical infectious disease. Cambridge (UK):
Cambridge University Press.
Tille, P. (2015). Bailey & Scott's diagnostic microbiology-E-Book. Australia: Elsevier
Health Sciences.
World Health Organization. (2016). Guidelines on core components of infection
prevention and control programmes at the national and acute health care facility
level. World Health Organization.
Journals
Diekema, D. J., & Pfaller, M. A. (2015). Prevention of health care-associated
infections. In Manual of Clinical Microbiology, Eleventh Edition. American
Society of Microbiology, 106-119.
Dramowski, A., Whitelaw, A., & Cotton, M. F. (2016). Healthcare-associated
infections in children: knowledge, attitudes and practice of paediatric healthcare
providers at Tygerberg Hospital, Cape Town. Paediatrics and international child
health, 36(3), 225-231.
Herzig, C. T., Stone, P. W., Castle, N., Pogorzelska-Maziarz, M., Larson, E. L., &
Dick, A. W. (2016). Infection prevention and control programs in US nursing
homes: results of a national survey. Journal of the American Medical Directors
Association, 17(1), 85-88.
Murni, I. K., Duke, T., Kinney, S., Daley, A. J., & Soenarto, Y. (2015). Reducing
hospital-acquired infections and improving the rational use of antibiotics in a
developing country: an effectiveness study. Archives of disease in
childhood, 100(5), 454-459.
Percival, S. L., Suleman, L., Vuotto, C., & Donelli, G. (2015). Healthcare-associated
infections, medical devices and biofilms: risk, tolerance and control. Journal of
medical microbiology, 64(4), 323-334.
Quinn, M. M., Henneberger, P. K., Braun, B., Delclos, G. L., Fagan, K., Huang, V., ...
& Maher, K. A. (2015). Cleaning and disinfecting environmental surfaces in health
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care: toward an integrated framework for infection and occupational illness
prevention. American journal of infection control, 43(5), 424-434.
Sax, H., & Clack, L. (2015). Mental models: a basic concept for human factors design
in infection prevention. Journal of Hospital Infection, 89(4), 335-339.
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