Question

Mukesh hung up the phone and sighed. “Charita,” he said, turning around to face his staff assistant, “can you compile the data from the last three months on all patients who were diagnosed with Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus?” “MRSA? Of course,” replied Charita, “what’s going on?” Mukesh was head of the infectious disease management department of the largest hospital in the area. “This is the third case I’ve heard about this week, and it’s not even Wednesday. I think there’s something going on. I want to see if there is an uptick in the number of cases.” “Give me an hour, and I’ll have it ready” Charita assured him.

2. Discuss the importance of keeping track of cases of healthcare-associated infections weekly.

Answer 1

Health care associated infection

Health care associated infection is defined as the development of an infection during hospitalization, the infection are not present or incubating at the time of patient admission to the hospital. The infection is usually occur after 48 to 72 hours of hospital admission and after 10 days of discharge.

The hospital acquired infection is most common problem that affect patient safety and provision of quality health care services.

Majors cause for HAI

:The sources of infection are endogenous(the microbes that present as part of patient normal flora) and exogenous (microbes present out of the patient body such as patient care equipments, patient care environment, health care personal, contaminated drug and contaminated food)

:increase inpatient acuity for illness :the hospital admitted patient are more vulnerable to infection due to their weakened immune system ,this is one of the cause for HAI.

:decrease staff patient ratio:this will lead to poor quality care and transfer of microbes in a hospital environment is easy.

:decrase resources :decrease resources to prevent HAIs are a one of the cause of Increased incidence of HAIs.

:decreased surviallance and tracking system.

How to prevent HAIs

:good hand hygiene practice among health care personal, it help to break the chain of infection .

:effective use of personal protective equipment is one of the strategy to reduce the incidence of HAIs. The use of mask, gown and gloves are help full to prevent infection. In the case of MRSA should  use disposable items.

:implementing hospital infection control measure help to provide quality health care services this prevent the occurance of infection.

:Surviellance is other measures to prevent HAIs.

:patient environmental cleanliness.

:use of evidence based practice

Impact of HAIs

:increased cost of health care.

:increase length of hospital stay .

:affect the life of patient, even death also happened.

Important of keeping weekly tracking of HAIs

It is important to update the information regarding hospital acquired infection in order to prevent further incidence of infection. Increased prevalence of HAIs is one of the burden to health care industry and it adversely affect the safety of patient and quality of services. Most of the hospital have up to date tracking system And good working infection control department. The Importance of weekly tracking of HAIs include,

:this will help to observe baseline rate of HAI and assess whether the occurance of HAIs above the base line.

:Tracking is helpful to evaluate effectiveness of infection control measure and activities .

:it help to identify the emergent diseases as early as possible.

:it help to notify to the public health authority regarding incidence of infection .

:it help to improve hospital infection control measure .

:it will lead to implement patient safety standards based on the national agency guidelines.

As a conclusion the tracking is important to identify  the incidence of HAI this will help to improve infection control measure and practice infection control activities  and this will result in overalls reduction in incidence of HAI.