Healthcare Associated Infections - Paper Example

Introduction

Healthcare-Associated Infections are one of the clinical issues in nursing practice. It refers to those infections that a patient acquires while receiving health care. Healthcare Associated Infections, in most cases, can be developed in hospitals, while receiving health care, within 30 days of receiving health care, or within 48 hours or more upon admission to hospital. It has become a global concern due to the threat of increasing drug resistance among the pathogens causing Healthcare-Associated Infections. One of its major causes of Healthcare-Associated Infections is the persistent contamination of surfaces in hospitals, which cannot be controlled by the use of conventional cleaning (Haque et al., 2018). This type of cleaning has a high environmental impact, does not prevent recontamination, and usually favours selection of drug-resistant microbial strains.

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HCAIs, drug events, and surgical complications are the most common kinds of adverse events that impact hospitalised patients. It has been identified that nearly 1.7 million hospitalised patients acquire HCAIs during the treatment process of other health problems, and HCAIs causes the death of over 98,000 of these individuals in the united states (Haque et al., 2018). Also, HCAIs has been reported by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality as the most common complications of hospital care and is one of the ten leading causes of death in the united states (Haque et al., 2018).

One of the four main categories in the NCLEX-RN examination blueprint is the assurance of safe and effective care environment. Nurses are required to ensure that they provide the patients with a care delivery setting to help in the protection of clients. It is further subdivided into safety and infection control that deals with the protection of health care personnel and clients from the environmental hazard (NCSBN, 2019). HCAIs cam is developed due to compromised health or health care interventions such as diagnostic testing, surgery, and invasive devices (NCSBN, 2019). Also, the presence of microorganisms can increase the risk of transmission of these infections among infections. Thus, safety and infection control is an essential element in the reduction of risk of acquiring infections and enhancement of the general well-being of individuals. This paper discusses the various aspects of HCAIs concerning safety and infection control. It will discuss the importance of HCAIs to the health of a patient population, proposed solution for its transmission, patient population, plan to be implemented by a nurse to address HCAIs, potential barriers to the success of this plan, and participants of the plan.

Importance

The Healthcare Associated Infections are a significant source of complications in the realm of patient care and is transmitted between different facilities providing health care. However, recent studies have shown that when the existing prevention measures are implemented, it can lead to a reduction in certain Healthcare Associated Infections by up to 70 per cent. Similarly, the remodelling of data by some studies has indicated that there is a substantial decrease in resistant bacteria such as MRSA when activities are carried out among health care facilities in a specific area in a coordinated manner. It has been shown that the use of these prevention practices has a substantial financial benefit in terms of medical cost savings that has been estimated to be around $25 billion to 31.5 billion. Generally, the risk factors associated with Healthcare-Associated Infections can be grouped into three including organisational factors, medical procedures and antibiotic use, and patient characteristics. The rate of Healthcare Associated infections is influenced by the behaviours and interactions of health care providers with the health care system.

Previous studies have shown that proper training and education of health care workers is crucial to the prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infections through ensuring that the adoption and compliances with best practices are increased (Haque et al., 2019). These best practices include hand hygiene, antibiotic stewardship, infection control, and attention to safety culture. They can also include decolonisation of patients with the use of the evidence-based method to help in the reduction of transmission of MRSA in hospitals. Other best practices include maintaining and promptly removing catheters as well as its careful insertion and the careful utilisation of antibiotics.

Healthcare-Associated Infections affect millions of patients in the world. Its burden has been determined to be higher in low- and middle-income countries compared to high-income countries. Usually, when untreated, Healthcare Associated Infections leads to more extended stays in the hospital by patients, increase in resistance of microorganisms to antimicrobials, long-term disability, unnecessary deaths, high costs for patients and their family.

Despite the frequency of the adverse impact of the Healthcare Associated Infections, its true global burden has not yet been stated. One of the main reasons is the difficulty when gathering reliable data, due to the lack of surveillance systems for HCAI by many counties, and even those countries that possess, then lack uniform criteria for its use as well as its complexity.

Patient Population

It has been estimated by a previous study conducted in 183 united states hospitals involving 11,282 patients, that HCAI has been contracted by at least 4% of the total patients. The most common microorganism identified was the Clostridium difficile. Among the patients, most of the infections were also found to be pneumonia, surgical site infections, and gastrointestinal infections. Two years before this study, another one was carried in the same group, which showed that among the patients, 6% suffered from HCAIs, while urinary tract infections, SSIs, bloodstream infections, and pneumonia contributing to 75.8% of the total infections. The most frequently detected microorganism was the Staphylococcus aureus.

The issue of Healthcare Associated infection is not only prevalent in the united states, but also around the world. It was established by a study in Singapore that 11.9% of patients contracted Healthcare-Associated Infections, pneumonia, and undetermined clinical sepsis, that was mainly transmitted by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and S. aureus. Furthermore, it helped in the identification of the resistance of P. aeruginosa and Acinetobacter species to carbapenem. In the European Union and European Economic Area, it has been established that every year 2,609,911 new cases of Healthcare-Associated Infections are reported. It further stated that one in every 20 patients hospitalised gets Healthcare Associated Infection, which is usually preventable.

Therefore, it can be noted that Healthcare-Associated Infections can affect any individual who is in hospitals. However, the level of prevalence in each population is dependent on the microorganism associated with the infection. For example, in Greece, the rate of incidence of Healthcare Associated Infection has indicated to be 9.1%, while the most frequent types of the infection are the UTIs, bloodstream infections, systemic infections, and lower respiratory tract infections.

The primary patients who are susceptible to these infections are those in contact with other individuals in the hospitals, who are infected due to cross-contamination between health workers, and patients. The common infections usually affect those patients with diminished immune responses, and infections that result from surgery sites, as well as prostheses and implants.

Proposed Solution

The prevalence of Healthcare-Associated Infections has made it a global concern as well as the threats imposed by the drug resistance among the pathogens that cause Healthcare-Associated Infections. The transmission of these infections is primarily due to persistent contamination of hospital surfaces and in the ineffective conventional cleaning methods, which does not prevent recontamination, besides having high environmental effect as well as favouring the selection of drug-resistant microbial strains (Caselli et al., 2018). Therefore, the proposed solution to help in the reduction of Healthcare-Associated Infections is the use of sanitation system based on probiotic.

In recent years, numerous researchers have correlated the health of the human body and the "health" of the hospital surfaces. Therefore, the replacement of the existing pathogens with beneficial microbes instead of eradicating them is an effective way of preventing infections. The proposed solution involves the use of eco-sustainable detergents that have spores of Bacillus probiotics, which has been identified by various studies as safe for hospitalised patients. It does not select for resistant strains, decreases surface pathogens 90% more than conventional disinfectants, instead of reducing them, without causing an increase in the costs of sanitation (Elisabetta et al., 2019).

A study conducted measuring the association between environment microbiota and Health Care Associated Infection in the hospital showed that probiotics could be used to manage these infections. It helped emphasise the responsibility played by the environment microbiota modulation for cleaning in health care facilities. It also assists in introducing an ecological approach to environmental cleaning. The use of probiotics in the reduction of incidences associated with Health Care Associated Infections has been studied and found to be a useful tool in the safety and prevention control of this infection. Previous studies have also shown that the use of probiotics will help develop policies that will assist in the reduction of the development of microbial resistance to antibiotics and disinfectants (D'Accolti et al., 2019). Furthermore, the use of probiotics is critical to the exploration of new strategies that will help curb its spread in health care settings.

In the transmission of Healthcare-Associated Infections, persistent surface contamination plays a critical role. Also, the presence of humans and living organisms makes ethical consideration an essential aspect when coming up with the plan. The most important moral consideration is to ensure that the lives of both humans and the microbiota are handled with respect. Thus, it is crucial that the plan contains policies that provide that the organisms involved in the process do not end up dead or maimed.

A pre-interventional study that analyses the Healthcare Associated Infection incidence and surface is conducted before the actual plan is executed. Therefore, it is vital that the participants in this study be approved by an ethical committee. Since the process involves infecting individuals knowingly, the individuals should sign a consent form to make it moral to help in the surveillance.

Goals

The plan primarily involves the replacement of the conventional cleaning system based on chemical such as chlorine products by a sanitation system based on probiotic. Therefore, the primary long-term objective of the plan is to ensure to identify the effectiveness of probiotic-based sanitation system compared to the chemical-based regular cleaning method. The definition of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control of each Healthcare Associated Infection is used to identify the observations in the implementation. The nurses involved in the study are required to observe the differences in the cleanliness of the hospital and loads of microorganisms that cause the Healthcare Associated Infections. Furthermore, the nurses involved are needed to identify each Healthcare Associated Infection etiological agents based on routine diagnostic tests.