Comparison Between Policies in Infection Control- myassignmenthelp

Question: Write about theComparison Between Policies in Infection Control. Answer: Introduction: One of the major health care concerns all over the globe has been the infection control for quite a few decades and the severity of the situation has been only increasing. According to the most of the studies one of the major contributing factors to the extended stay in the health care facilities for the patients is the hospital acquired infection and the rate of mortality resulting from the complications that arose due to the infections has also been increasing. Hence the infection control has become one of the most important health care priorities of this decade (Tecchio et al. 2013). There are a number of different policies that have been introduced in order to minimize the rate of patients succumbing to hospital acquired infections. Although, not all the policies are equally effective in actively removing the possibility of the patients being infected while in the hospital facility under the care of the health care professionals (Simi et al. 2013). This report will compare and contrast two infection control policies and attempt to arrive at the verdict at the efficacy and potential of the said policy. The policies selected for this assignment are the hand hygiene policy and the protective isolation policy. Hand hygiene policy: The first policy selected in this assignment focused on infection control is the most common and the most frequently used policies all over the world, the hand hygiene policy. According to most of the research that has been focused on hospital acquired infection and its prevention and management, the hand borne microorganism is considered to be the biggest contributing factor leading to the infection. In order to minimize the risk of spreading infection within the healthcare environment, the hand hygiene policy has been introduced all over the globe with a few set of instructions to have the health care professionals, visitors or the patient families can understand the course of action to follow in order to maintain complete hand hygiene. This particular policy outlines all the specific hand hygiene practices and protocol required to minimize the risk of patients, visitors and healthcare staff acquiring healthcare facility associated infection (Simi and Osram Sylvania 2013). One of t he most highlighted elements in the hand hygiene policy is the simple and easy set of 5 activities that can help the healthcare professionals and other stakeholders associated with the situation to acquire hand hygiene in just 5 minutes is the five moments of hand hygiene. This is the element that makes the hand hygiene policy easy, attainable and extremely time saving for the healthcare professionals. This policy directive outlines all the health care staff belonging to the public health organizations to perform hand hygiene before and after encountering with the patient each time without fail. This policy also includes alcohol based hand rubs to be a mandatory part of the hand hygiene policy hence it must be supplied to all the health care staff, patients and visitors at all times (Jang et al. 2010). Taking the Australian context into consideration the hand hygiene policy is the extension of the national hand hygiene program coordinated by the Clinical Excellence Commission on the behalf of NSW department of health. According to the directives of hand hygiene policy, the mandatory requirement standards and protocols for this policy is to be maintained by all the healthcare staff belonging to any Public Health organization at all times, the health services group will audit and monitor the hand hygiene compliance in the different healthcare facilities at all provinces to ensure that all the staff are complying with the hand hygiene policy efficiently. The hand hygiene policy directive also explains to the health care staff when to perform hand hygiene in the context of caring for patients (Lau et aL. 2012). According to the steps of the five moments of hand hygiene, the moment one of performing hand hygiene is before touching the patient or the surroundings of the patient. Second moment under the scheme is before performing any antiseptic procedure for the patient, 3rd movement of hand hygiene is after a body fluid exposure risk associated with the patient. The fourth movement of hand hygiene is after touching the patient or leaving the surroundings of the patient. And the last moment is after touching any of the patient's surroundings before leaving the surroundings of the patient for good. Along with that hand hygiene policy also mandates that the staff must perform hand hygiene after going to the toilet, after sneezing coughing in two hands after having any contaminated material or instrument, after handling any kind of waste, and before and after handling the food or intravenous material of the patient. Along with alcohol hand rubs antiseptic washes and Vibes are also included within the hand hygiene policy and must be supplied to all the health care staff unequivocally and abundantly (Talaat et al. 2011). Therefore the hand hygiene policy takes into consideration not only the hygiene and safety of the patients but also pays attention to the health and wellbeing of the staff, visitors and others in order to avoid the spread of hospital acquired infections and minimize the rate of the same within the Healthcare statistics. Protective isolation policy: While complying with the hand hygiene policy is enough for normal patients, for those who are critically ill or are immunocompromised hand hygiene policy will not suffice in ensuring maximum infection control within the healthcare facility or environment. It has to be understood that critical illnesses that diminish the immunological strength or innate immunity of the patients a simple hand hygiene policy involving alcohol rubs and antiseptic washes is more or less insignificant or ineffective in ascertaining absolute avoidance of any infection causing microorganisms (McLaws et al. 2009). For the same another policy has been included within the infection control regime that helps protecting the immunocompromised patients in to succumbing to further complications associated with chronic infections. The protective isolation policy is one such policy that comprises of a range of practices used in hospitals and healthcare facilities to protect the immune compromised patients or patients with extremely weak immunity from gaining infection or further complication in infections. This policy is the extension of the NHS and complies with the professional and ethical guidelines of the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Defining in simple terms, protective isolation is also called reverse barrier nursing fat the patient with extremely high risk of infection is physically separated from the common microflora carried by the health care staff and others. The patients for whom protective isolation protocol is followed are generally the ones suffering from immunological disorders, infections, congenital immune deficiency syndrome, HIV or the patients who are neutropenic or have had immunosuppressive therapy for their medical complications (Dunkley and McLeod 2015). The Healthcare facilities that come under the protective isolation package include a single side room along with a wash basin and attached toilet for the sole use of the patient. The residence facilities like the washroom, the room itself and the equipments and instruments that are used by the patient must be deep cleaned before the patient is moved into the room under the protocols are protective isolation policy. Along with that to resist or reduce the risk of air Borne infections the door to the single room must be closed effectively at all times except for medical treatment related purposes. Under the director of this policy inside the single room of immunocompromised patients the equipments that are mandatory include hand soap, hibiscrub, and paper towels, personal watch bowls and dine map, alcohol handgel and non clinical waistband which frequently (Grayson et al. 2011). The policy directive also restricts electric fans to be used inside the room for the immunocompromised patie nts. The list of equipments that that this policy allows to be present inside the room is protective isolation sign to aware the Healthcare professional about the immunocompromised situation of the patient, disposable plastic aprons and gloves, and patient information charts. Patient education and consent is a very important part of this policy and as anxiety and confusion can be associated with the extra protection that the patient needs psychological support and reinsurance is also a necessity for immunocompromised patients within a Healthcare facility. Last it must be mentioned that this policy utilizes masks apron sandglass utilized at all times when encountering a patient and the oral and personal hygiene of the patient is given adequate attention is well (Biagioli et al. 2016). Similarities and differences: Both Policies, hand hygiene and protective isolation are similar in a lot of contexts. Both policies are meant to avoid and restrict patients acquiring hospital associated infections, however the magnitude of the both policies and not similar. Hand hygiene policy is an overall protocol to protect the patients the Healthcare staff and the visitors from gaining any contamination agent present within the healthcare facility and in contact with the patients. The scope of hand hygiene policy is also wider and much simpler than the protective isolation policy. The latter however includes protocols and procedure for patients who are at extremely high risk of contamination and suffer from highly deficient immunological system. Hence the magnitude and scope of this policy is much more specific, precise and incorporate much more elements than the hand hygiene policy can encompass (Erasmus et al. 2010). One of the most significant differences between hand hygiene policy and protective isolation policy is that hand hygiene policy only takes into consideration the hand borne microflora, whereas, the protective isolation policy encompasses hand borne, air borne and all other means of contamination and protect the patients from any exposure of the microorganism that we carry. It also must be considered that protective isolation policy is meant for patients who are immunocompromised and the excessive complications and exhaustive activities that these patients require are not needed by normal patients with perfectly functional immunity. Hence, protective isolation can be considered as more of a sector appropriate infection control policy whereas hand hygiene policy can be and should be implemented in all the sectors involving any kind of patients with the diverse range of healthcare complexities (Annibali et al. 2017). Discussion: As mentioned above, hand hygiene policy is more of a global standard that is followed across all healthcare divisions for all kinds of patients in order to protect them from any hospital acquired infections. These policies comprise of simple instructions to follow that are time saving and also cost effective so that it can be supplied in abundance to the entire staff of healthcare facilities. On the other hand, the protective isolation policy is meant for specific patients with weaker or dysfunctional immunity power, hence the policy incorporates practices and equipments that are much more expensive and takes a lot more time to complete (Mayhall 2012). Hence it can be considered that protective isolation policy is undoubtedly much more effective, efficient, and highly functional in protecting the patients from all types of contaminations and has the potential to reduce the rate of hospital acquired infections drastically, the time and monetary resources that it will demand will make compliance with this particular policy in a broader and largest scale, obsolete. Hand hygiene policy on the other hand is cheap, easy and can be incorporated with much more ease into broader scales of the healthcare sector. That is the reason many authors have discussed hand hygiene policy to be a necessity in the healthcare sector while protective isolation still remains a luxury that the Healthcare facilities can only extend to patients who are in dire need of it (Mayhall 2012). Conclusion: On a concluding note, it can be said that both policies have extreme importance within the context of healthcare services and each serves a purpose that is extremely essential for the safety and well being of both the patients and the health care staff. Whereas, protective isolation is diverse, incorporating much more specific and precise detail into protecting the patients from all kinds of contamination, the time, cost and complication of this protocol also needs to be taken into consideration. The activities that a regular healthcare professionals needs to perform in order to provide protective isolation to all patients within hospitals will be too expensive, time consuming and complicated for a single Healthcare professionals to achieve multiple numbers of times in a single day for patients who do not even need that magnitude of protection. That is why hand hygiene policy is implemented all across the healthcare sector all over the globe where as protective isolation is only impl emented in nations that can afford it. Therefore there is need for improvisations to the hand hygiene policy so that all the Healthcare sector can take advantage of a bit more precise and detailed infection control protocol like reverse barrier technique in order to decrease the rate of hospital acquired infection in the coming years. References: Abad, C., Fearday, A. and Safdar, N., 2010. Adverse effects of isolation in hospitalised patients: a systematic review.Journal of Hospital Infection,76(2), pp.97-102. Annibali, O., Pensieri, C., Tomarchio, V., Biagioli, V., Pennacchini, M., Tendas, A., Tambone, V. and Tirindelli, M.C., 2017. Protective Isolation for Patients with Haematological Malignancies: A Pilot Study Investigating Patients Distress and Use of Time.International Journal of Hematology-Oncology and Stem Cell Research. 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