Preventing Infections is more than Infection Control initiatives related to Hospital Acquired Conditions. The role of Infection Prevention and Control professionals has been forced into specific measures today which are all well intended, but organizations often miss the larger picture.
All organizations must conduct a hazard determination assessment, ensure employee have proper protective equipment available, have employee health and safety programs and even reach into food service areas.
A simple item that will get organizations into trouble is to serve fruit that is not protected and placed in containers for open handling and consumption. People have the misconception that all food served in cafeterias are ready to eat – what happens when someone with a cold, touches the apple in the basket and returns the apple for another person’s consumption? All fruit must be protected, loaves of bread should not be offered in its entirety – only individual slices in individual packages and so on.
Another simple area is to ensure that all areas where clean or sterile supplies are stored – are stored in the proper manner and to ensure that someone is dusting the entirety of the storage shelf on a routine basis- dust is often contaminants that in the right conditions will grow into mildew, mold or other hazardous substances.
The Infection Prevention and Control programs in Hospitals today go far beyond those initiatives related to Hospital Acquired Conditions. How does your program look?
To learn more about infection prevention visit our Quality Academy and check out our “Surgical Site Infection Prevention” course to learn new strategies to prevent infections with evidence-based guidelines.
