Question

as a director and on the QI/PI COMMITEE

LIST seven reccomendations on how the hospital could decrease all the rates of infection

Answer 1

Quality Improvement/Practice Improvement (QI/PI) activities should include identifying an improvement opportunity in your hospital setup, implementing a change to address that opportunity, and measuring the impact of your change.

a. isolation-Assess the need for isolation,Screen all intensive care unit (ICU),identify the type of isolation needed

two types of isolation in the ICU:Protective isolation for immunocompromised patients to reduce the chances of acquiring opportunistic infection & Source isolation of colonized or infected patients to minimize potential transmission to other patients or staff. Isolation rooms should have tight-fitting doors, glass partitions for observation& ventilation.

b. observe hand hygiene- prevents horizontal transmission of infections among hospital patients and health care personnel. follow World Health Organization's five moments for hand hygiene- Before touching a patient, Before aseptic procedures, After body fluid exposure/risk, After touching the patient and After touching the patient's surrounding.

c. Vaccination of health care personnel

d. antimicrobial stewardship recommendations- Close collaboration between the antimicrobial stewardship team, microbiology lab, hospital pharmacy and infection control team should be maintained

e. Follow transmission-based precautions-along with standard precautions, patients known or suspected to have airborne, contact or droplet infections should follow isolation properly, limitation of patient transportvis needed.Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) and urinary tract infection (UTI) are the most important strategies to avoid specefic nosocomial infections.

f. administrative measures- there should be better patient to nurse ratio in the ICU, policies for controlling traffic flow to and from the unit to reduce sources of contamination from visitors, staff and equipment, Audit and surveillance of infections and infection control practices. there should be an Infection control team (multidisciplinary approach)

g.Education and training for ICU staff about prevention of nosocomial infections, ICU protocols for prevention of nosocomial infections, implementation of Waste and sharp disposal policy.