4 Ways to Increase the Effectiveness of Infection Control

When at home you will not take simple infections like cold and cough too seriously and simply use common medications to take care of it. But the same infections like these and many other mild ones like a urine infection can lead to more serious issues due to the presence of an earlier illness or the ever present danger of infection in a healthcare environment.

While infection control will help to contain any potentially dangerous outcomes from spreading of diseases, the following 4 points can be useful for increasing the effectiveness of such control.

· Monitor Source: Knowing the source of any infection is of critical importance. You must keep an eye on all the new admissions to the healthcare facility while also monitoring the existing patients to know if the infection was present prior to admission and has in fact come from the community or whether it is originating and spreading from within the facility itself.

· Infection Listing: Considering the number of patients and illnesses to be treated, it is a good idea to track each infection from the beginning to the finish. You must keep a record of all the patients' along with factors such as organism causing the infection, treatment administered, improvement and also any sensitivity report. Putting down the relevant dates of admission and contracting infection is very important. You can then club the patients on various aspects and analyze the gathered data.

· Identifying Patterns: The data on hand may throw up certain patterns that will help you in identifying the infection source. For example, a number of patients in the same unit with an infection may show certain similar signs and sensitivities that may indicate the possibility of a single source of infection. While an infection spread through the facility may be due to random sources or poor hygiene levels. Either way such information can help you to find out if the infection is spreading due to the staff, patients, and outsiders or because of certain procedures of the healthcare facility.

· Educate: The information of the data can be used to educate the staff and even inform the patients on how to contain the infection by taking certain basic hygienic measures or some preventive actions. The staff must be asked to stay vigilant and look out for any signs and symptoms of similar infection in differ units or among patients. Since healthcare staff works at the ground level and regularly interacts with the patients, the infections may be noticed early on enabling steps to be taken quickly to contain the situation.

Infection control must have a high priority in all the healthcare facilities because any ineffective management will lead to increased periods of illness and not to mention several cost factors. On the other hand a proper handling will not only ensure quicker treatment but will also protect the patients and staff from contracting infections. Alternatively, if you do notice a particular pattern to certain infections you can share the data with the local or state health departments which can also prove to be useful for other healthcare facilities in your area.