Question

how can hospital acquired infections be minimized

Answer 1

Hospital acquired infection or nosocomial infection are infections acquired by a patient while admitted to a health care facility. These infections can occur due to poor sanitary practices, may be transmitted from another patient or may cause a patients skin microbiota to become infectious after surgical or operative procedures.

Major ways of how hospital acquired infection spread are:

• Contact transmission between the infected surface and the susceptible patient. Contact transmission may be direct, or indirect via contaminated tools, equipments etc.
• Airborne and droplet transmission where pathogens can be transmitted from one patient to another via droplets formed from sneezing, coughing, talking or during procedures like bronchoscopy.
• Common vehicle transmission is transmission of pathogens through contamination of shared resources such as food, hospital equipments or hospital linens etc.
• Vector borne transmission of diseases like dengue, malaria, yellow fever from already infected patients through appropriate mosquito vector.

Such hospital acquired transmission can be avoided by following some simple hygienic practices:

• Hand washing: Hand washing is the single most important prevention mechanism for hospital acquired infection. Prompt and thorough hand washing by the health care staff between attending different patients minimizes spread of infection through transmission skin microbes, blood, urine or other body fluids, mucus secretions, pathogens acquired from surgical procedures etc.
• Minimizing exposure: Patients, especially with infectious diseases should have minimal contact with the external hospital environment. They must be kept under intense care and must be isolated from common areas of hospital or the concerned health care facility. There transport should be reduced to only the bare minimum. Visitors should be given proper protective masks and gloves before visiting.
• Equipment sterilization: All surgical equipment must be thoroughly cleaned and sterilized both before and after every use. This can be a prime vehicle tor transmission of infectious pathogens and hence following proper protocols for cleaning equipment is absolutely essential.
• Surface sanitation: All surfaces on hospital which comes in contact with either a patient, or health care staff or visitor must be clean and not a place to contract infections. Thorough cleaning with alcohol must be carried out to ensure no pathogen transmission occurs through this surfaces. This surfaces should also be covered with protective materials which prevent the growth of micro organisms.
• Isolation: Highly infectious patients must be kept isolated. Proper safety precautions must be taken with those affected with vector borne diseases to ensure further spread of such diseases.
• Respiration protection: Use of mask, and equipments such as air purifier is absolutely essential to reduce and prevent the transmission of air borne infections such as influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis etc.
• Thorough disinfection: Everything in hospital that comes in contact to a patient must undergo thorough disinfection. This includes proper washing of hospital linen, disposing of medical wastes with extreme care, ensuring hospital food is safe and free of pathogens, regular cleaning of bedpans and changing of bedsheets and ensuring things like bed rails, door grips, light switches do not avoid required cleaning.
• Use of gloves and masks: Health care staff must use proper protective clothing before handling a patient to reduce hospital acquired infections. This includes use of proper aseptic masks, gloves, gowns etc before a surgical procedure.
• Following strict aseptic conditions: Strict aseptic conditions must be maintained in the hospital. Protocols must be strictly followed and thorough sterilization must be done every time an employee or a visitor enters or leaves the health care facility. This would minimize the growth and transmission of pathogens.
• Extreme care while handling IV drips, catheters etc.: Improperly inserted catheters can cause urinary tract infection, IV drips may lead to skin infection. Extreme care must be taken while handling them to ensure that these essential services do not become a source of infection.