Infection Control Policy in Australia - Essay Example

Infection control policy in Australia Aged care nursing is a very important aspect of life in the world today. This is because society needs to take care of the aged people because they have contributed much in it. Infection control policies have continued to be developed and implemented over the years. This has been done in order to respond, and adhere to health emergencies and improve healthcare facilities in Australia. The policy on infection control of the aged is managed under the NSW health in Australia, which operates under the Australian Government through the Department of Health. The World Health Organization (2003, p.9) highlights that there have been emergencies of dangerous respiratory and other infectious diseases like tuberculosis over the years. Therefore, there is a need to introduce policies for healthcare facilities for the aged to control such infections and their spread. Infection control policy has been defined as the programs and procedures meant to monitor diseases within health care facilities, investigate, prevent and control the spread of such infections and their causes. Infection control policies involve the procedures, which are used in the healthcare facilities, which serve to minimize the spread of any infection to patients and other people. The infection control policy is a health branch of healthcare with a role to prevent healthcare associate’s infections. Hence, infection control policies serve to manage any spread of infections and infectious microorganisms in the healthcare facilities (World Health Organization 2003, p.9). To ensure that transmission of infections is properly monitored, there is a need to inform the patients, their relatives, healthcare workers and people who are involved in caring for the aged. The Essex Health Protection Unit (2011, p.6) highlights that these policies have been developed for use by proprietors, healthcare personnel and care homes and their implementation helps to ensure that there is efficiency in management of risks associated with infections. Further, implementation of these policies ensures that quality of healthcare for the aged is improved. The World Health Organization (2003, p.12) highlights that infection control policies should have some defining characteristics for it to be effective. The first characteristic of the policy is the operating of systems for control of infections. This means that the policy should have regulations put in place to respond to any cases of infections. Secondly, the policy should have education and training programs for the healthcare personnel who are involved in nursing of the aged. They should be taken through training so that they can be able to understand what is required of them. Thirdly, the healthcare workers should be protected by the policy. The policy should ensure that healthcare workers health is protected through immunization programs and other methods, which promote prevention of infections when working (World Health Organization 2003, p.12). Lastly, the policy should identify potential hazards and ways of minimizing any risks of infections. According to NSW Health (2010, p.10) the main purpose of the policy is to lay down the fundamental principles of controlling infections in the Australian healthcare system. These foundations help the healthcare system to develop policies and procedures that are relevant for their own aged care nursing facilities. Infection control policies purposes can be implemented through either standard precautions or additional precautions (NSW Health 2010, p.3). The policy standard precautions are said to apply to all patients at all times irrespective of their health conditions (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence 2012, p.12). The first purpose of the infection control policies is to ensure Standard procedures are followed when dealing with patients. These precautions involve using basic standard healthcare precautions to provide a high degree of protection to the healthcare workers, the aged and people who are exposed to them. The National Health Management Resource Commission (2010, p.31) states that standard precautions in the policy includes hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, safe disposal of sharps, clean environment, reprocessing reusable medical equipments, spills management and proper handling and disposal of wastes. Hand washing should be taken seriously because the hands are that are mostly in contact with patients. NSW Health (2010, p.13) highlights that hand hygiene involve washing hands with running water and soap or by using skin cleansers. Hands should be cleaned before and after handling foods, gong to the toilet, eating, handling own mucus membranes, using gloves, patient care procedures and during starting and finishing of work. In addition, patients and visitors should also be sensitized on the need to keep hand hygiene and such hygiene provided to them. This will enable reduction of chances of transmitting infections. The hand hygiene has the purpose of protecting patients from infectious agents from other sources and the environment, which they live in. The second standard procedure in the policy is using personal protective equipments during aged care nursing (NSW Health 2010, p.14). When the healthcare workers use protective equipments while caring for the aged, they create protection from microorganisms which cause infections. The World Health Organization (2003, p.16) highlights that protective equipments prevent contamination of hands and body from infections and their transmission to patients and healthcare workers. Protective equipments in the policy include gloves, eyewear, masks, apron, gowns, covered shoes and head cover (World Health Organization 2003, p.16). Pratt et al. (2010, p.27) points out that protective equipments should be used effectively and in the right way always. They should be used according to the exposure risk level such as body fluids. The next standard precaution is the prevention of needle and sharp objects injuries. Health staff should take care and avoid injuries caused by sharp equipments like needles, glass and scalpels. Used sharp equipments should be placed in an enclosed container, which has a lid (Essex Health Protection Unit 2011, p.28). In addition, they should be appropriately destroyed according to the acceptable standards. The fourth standard precaution is to ensure a clean environment through routine management (National Health and Medical Research Council 2010, p.70). Agents of infection can be found in healthcare facilities for the aged, and they lead to transmission of infections from the environment to the patients. Therefore, the environment should regularly be cleaned thoroughly to avoid transmission of infections from the environment to the patients. To achieve this, cleaning schedules should be used to ensure that frequently touched surfaces in the facility are cleaned with disinfectants (National Health and Medical Research Council 2010, p.71). The fifth standard precaution is reprocessing of reusable medical equipments. National Health and Medical Research Council (2010, p.80) states that reusable medical equipments should be handled with precaution in order to prevent infections. They should be properly reprocessed through sterilization, cleaning and disinfection; this should be done using the manufacturer’s guidelines of the equipments. The second last precaution in the policy is spills management. It is concerned with body fluids and substances from patient’s spills in the aged care facility. These spills should be effectively managed by using the proper methods applicable in a medical facility (Essex Health Protection Unit 2011 p30). Lastly, there should be proper handling and management of wastes in the aged care facility. The World Health Organization (2003, p.11) highlights that health facility wastes should be effectively managed by avoiding their storage for more than necessary periods. This is because they can be breeding agents of infections and can lead to their spread. The second purpose of the infection control policy is to ensure that additional precautions are followed. Additional precautions are also referred to as transmission-based precautions (World Health Organization 2003, p.7). These precautions are limited to the various infection transmission modes in the healthcare facility. Three main modes of transmission of infections include airborne, droplets and through contact (World Health Organization 2003, p.7). Additional precautions on airborne policy ensure that infections are not spread through air (Department of Health and Human Services n.d., p.12). Infections can be spread through the air when evaporated droplets are passed in the air hence, aiding transmission of infections. To prevent this, workers should wear masks and limit movement of infected patients in the aged care facility (Department of Health and Human Services n.d., p.12). The second transmission based precaution is droplet precaution, and it involves spreading of infections through contact of mucus membranes of an infected person in the form of droplets (SF Dept of Health 2005, p.3). This can be through coughing and sneezing and it can be prevented by wearing a mask and placing infecting patients in isolated rooms until they are recovered. The last additional precaution is contact precaution. It seeks to prevent infections transmitted through physical skin contact with patients (SF dept of Health 2005, p.4). This can be prevented by wearing protective clothing, gloves, regular washing of hands and cleaning of patients care equipments that are frequently used. The infection control policy has contributed to the development and delivery of aged care services in Australian healthcare facilities. Firstly, they have led to the advancement of risk management policies for the aged care facilities (National Health and Medical Research Council 2010 p.198). This has created grounds for preventing and managing dangers associated with infections to the aged patients. Secondly, the infection control policy has contributed to the delivery of aged care services through the development of policies and procedures that are relevant to individual facilities. This is because they can modify them easily in order to improve their service delivery. Thirdly, the infection control policy has led to education and training of healthcare personnel who care for the aged on ways, they can use to improve delivery of care services (National Health and Medical Research Council 2010, p.195). Fourthly, the policy has enhanced the development of a monitoring and review program in the facilities. This ensures that services to the aged are being offered efficiently. It creates a method through which progress can be measured and evaluated in efforts to offer better services. Lastly, the policies have enabled improvement of quality in delivery of care services to the aged. This is because they have set standards of performance for the facilities in the provision of care services. This helps to set a benchmark through which facilities can set quality standards of their service (Pratt et al., 2010, p.16). Therefore, in order to improve policies on infection control, aged care nursing facilities should be given incentives so that they can improve the policies. This is because some of these policies are time consuming and expensive to implement. For example, hand-washing facilities should be installed for them to improve their cleanliness efforts in the facilities. This can be an expensive project and the facilities can be assisted by volunteers to achieve these goals. Secondly, there should be efforts to invest in research so that new infections are identified before they harm the aged. This will give the nursing centers for the aged time to prepare for such outcomes. Thirdly, there should be application of consistent practices through the policies by the health workers. In this case, new method of ensuring health workers have, the right knowledge should be introduced to ensure there are improvements in service delivery. This is because the workers will make efforts to develop and improve what they know so that they can improve service delivery. Lastly, health facilities should be assisted with financial and logistics assistance so that they can improve on their infection control policies. This is because they will be equipped with necessary empowerment to develop further the existing policies. One way, which I can use to promote improvement of infection control policies in aged care facilities, is by educating people. People should be educated on how the policies on infection control work. When they are educated on the existing policies, it will be easier to improve them since they can also come up with new ideas. Secondly, I would engage myself in volunteer programs, which seek to improve the infection control policies. Through these programs, one will acquire full knowledge and practice of the existing policies. This will help in identifying new areas of concern because one will be actively involved in health programs. References Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Basic Infection Control and Prevention for Outpatient Oncology Settings. National Center for Emergency and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/hai/pdfs/guidelines/basic-infection-control-prevention-plan-2011.pdf Accessed [14/09/2012]. Essex Health Protection Unit. (2011). Infection Control Guidelines Care Homes. Available from: http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1194947342171 Accessed [14/09/2012]. National Health and Medical Research Council. (2010). Australian Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Infection in Healthcare. Australian Government: Available from: http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/cd33_complete.pdf Accessed [14/09/2012]. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. (March 2012,). Infection Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infections. Available from: http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/13684/58656/58656.pdf Accessed [14/09/2012]. NSW Health. (2007). Infection Control Policy. [WWW] Available from: http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/policies/pd/2007/pdf/PD2007_036.pdf Accessed [14/09/2012]. Pratt, P. R., Pellowe, C.M., Wilson, J.A., Loveday, H.P., Harper, P.J., Jones, S.R.L.J., McDougall, C. and Wilcox, M.H. (2007). National Evidence-Based Guidelines for Preventing Healthcare-Associated Infections in England. The Journal of Hospital Infection, 65S, S1–S64. SF Dept. of Health. (2005). Infection Control Precautions. Available from: http://www.sfcdcp.com/document.html?id=68 Accessed [14/09/2012]. World Health Organization. (2003). Practical Guidelines for Infection Control in Healthcare. Available from: http://www.smp-council.org.hk/mlt/english/mlt_message_infection_e.pdf Accessed [14/09/2012]. Read More