Introduction
In recent years, surgical site infections are verified as one of the most errors that are common in the healthcare; however, they are also preventable. These research papers will synthesis information about surgical infections, patient experience, hospital-acquired conditions and achievement of expected treatment for specific clinical diagnoses. A surgical site infection is an infected condition in the body after surgery has occurred. Surgical site infections are caused by germs, called bacteria. Different types of bacteria from the environment may cause a delay in healing. The infection may come from surgical tools or bacteria on the skin if it is not clean correctly. Healthcare professionals use certain guidelines and procedures to stop infections or symptoms. The standard guideline for universal precautions applies to all healthcare employees; by using antibacterial soap for washing their hands to elbows, sterilizing surgical supplies, wear gloves, gowns and masks. This helps to prevent blood borne infectious diseases. “According to Bratzle,” (2006) Patients who experience postoperative complications have dramatically increased hospital length of stay, hospital costs, and mortality rates.
Hospital acquired conditions
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has implemented the Surgical Infection Prevention Project to decrease the morbidity and mortality associated with postoperative surgical site infections. More recently, the Surgical Care Improvement Project, a national quality partnership of organizations committed to improving the safety of surgical care, has been announced. (Bratzle, 2006) When Joint Control guidelines not followed ...
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...blem in the medial field. Some countries with higher knowledge and equipment have a better development of preventing surgical infections.
References
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The purpose of this paper is to identify a quality safety issue. I will summarize the impact that this issue has on health care delivery. In addition, I will identify quality improvement strategies. Finally, I will share a plan to effectively implement this quality improvement strategy.
Retained foreign objects have been a major problem throughout operating rooms, labor and delivery, as well as any other procedural area that perform invasive procedures. Retained foreign objects include soft goods, such as sponges, needles, sharps, instruments and other small miscellaneous items used during a procedure (NoThing Left Behind, 2013). The retention of these items can lead to several complications such as a local tissue reactions, infection, obstruction of blood vessels, and even death (Mathias, 2013, p. 2) According to the OR Manager, the effects of a retained surgical item can lead to patients having a increased mortality rate by 2.14%, an increased hospital stay by 2.08 days, and increased hospital costs by $13,315 (Mathias, 2013, p.1). In response to this, NoThing Left Behind was created. NoThing Left Behind is a national surgical safety project that was created as a system wide policy to help prevent the event of a retained surgical item (RSI). This project estimates that there are 1500-2000 retained surgical items left in patients each year within the United States (NoThing Left Behind, 2013). Furthermore, evidence shows that there has been an increase in retained foreign objects left within patients that undergo invasive procedures that occur outside of the operating room and labor and delivery. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to analyze the negative impact, physically, emotionally, and financially, on patients as well as the hospital, related to retained foreign objects during an invasive procedure. The focus is on areas such as the catheterization lab, endoscopy, emergency room, and other bedside procedures where there is no accounting process in place.
I work in the Surgery department in the pre-operative and post-operative phase. One of the EBP that we use is intravenous antibiotic prophylaxis prior to surgeries. Studies have shown absolute decrease of infections and length of hospital stay. The timing of preoperative prophylaxis is crucial. “F...
Hospital acquired infections are spread by numerous routes including contact, intravenous routes, air, water, oral routes, and through surgery. The most common types of infections in hospitals include urinary tract infections (32%), surgical site infections (22%), pneumonia (15%), and bloodstream infections (14%). ( book). The most common microorganisms associated with the types of infections are Esherichila coli, Enterococcus species, Staphylococcus auerus, Coagulase-negative staphylococci, or Pseudomonas aeruginosa.(secondary) Urinary tract infections occur when one or more of microorganisms enter the urinary system and affect the bladder and/or the kidneys. These infections are often associated improper catheterization technique. Surgical site infections occur after surgery in the part of the body where the surgery took place. These infections may involve the top of the skin, the tissue under the skin, organs, or blood vessels. Surgical site infections sometimes take days or months after surgery to develop. The infections can be cause by improper hand washing, dressing change technique, or improper surgery procedure. Pneumonia can also become a hospital acquired infection. Ventilator-associated pneumonia is a type of lung in...
Martin, M., Fulford, M., & Preston, T. (2009). Infection Control for the Dental Team. London: Quintessence Publishing Co.
(2014) shed light on two key components for infection control, which includes protecting patients from acquiring infections and protecting health care workers from becoming infected (Curchoe et al., 2014). The techniques that are used to protect patients also provide protection for nurses and other health care workers alike. In order to prevent the spread of infections, it is important for health care workers to be meticulous and attentive when providing care to already vulnerable patients (Curchoe et al., 2014). If a health care worker is aware they may contaminate the surroundings of a patient, they must properly clean, disinfect, and sterilize any contaminated objects in order to reduce or eliminate microorganisms (Curchoe et al., 2014). It is also ideal to change gloves after contact with contaminated secretions and before leaving a patient’s room (Curchoe, 2014). Research suggests that due to standard precaution, gloves must be worn as a single-use item for each invasive procedure, contact with sterile sites, and non-intact skin or mucous membranes (Curchoe et al., 2014). Hence, it is critical that health care workers change gloves during any activity that has been assessed as carrying a risk of exposure to body substances, secretions, excretions, and blood (Curchoe et al.,
The World Health Organization (WHO), started the Safe Surgery Saves Lives initiative to reduce the number of deaths caused by surgery. There are specific check marks to follow before surgery, immediately before surgery in the OR, after the surgery is finished, and report back to the patient and family after surgery, proven by evidence-based practices. “The Checklist is intended to give teams a simple, efficient set of priority checks for improving effective teamwork and communication and to encourage active consideration of the safety of patients in every operation performed” (“Implementation Manual Surgical Safety Checklist”, n.d). Every one of these is very important to improve patient safety, but specifically one checkmark
Patients seek health care services to get relieve or complete resolution of their health problems. Unfortunately, some end up with hospital acquired infection (HAI). HAI have a negative effect on the patient, the payer and the institution. This paper discuss the author’s interview with a health care provider on challenges encountered in addressing infection prevention, risk management strategies used in the organization’s infection control program , risk monitoring and maintenance and his view on infection prevention. HAI are preventable and individual health care provider, their institution, the patient and any other player involved must perform their role in infection control to reverse the current trend.
Patient safety must be the first priority in the health care system, and it is widely accepta-ble that unnecessary harm to a patient must be controlled.Two million babies and mother die due to preventable medical errors annually worldwide due to pregnancy related complications and there is worldwide increase in nosocomial infections, which is almost equal to 5-10% of total admissions occurring in the hospitals. (WHO Patient Safety Research, 2009). Total 1.4 million patients are victims of hospital-acquired infection. (WHO Patient Safety Research, 2009). Unsafe infection practice leads to 1.3 million death word wide and loss of 26 millions of life while ad-verse drug events are increasing in health care and 10% of total admitted patients are facing ad-verse drug events. (WHO Patient Safety Re...
Whelan, R., Conrod, P. J., Poline, J., Lourdusamy, A., Banaschewski, T., Barker, G. J, Bellgrove, M. A.,
The Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Program is an essential force maximizing quality, patient centered care, and safety throughout the Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care System (VANTHCS). The VANTHCS “... is a progressive health care provider in the heart of Texas ... we serve more than 117,000 Veterans and deliver 1.4 million outpatient episodes of care each year to Veterans in 38 Texas counties and two counties in southern Oklahoma” (“VA North Texas,” 2016, para. 1). The purpose of the IPC Program is to guide a facility-wide approach toward identifying, preventing, controlling, and eliminating healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). This approach is facilitated through infection control (IC) practitioner’s role-modeling behaviors of assessing, supporting, guiding, and/or directing healthcare providers (HCPs) in the application of evidence-based practices (EBPs) to prevent HAIs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HAIs are often preventable adverse events that pose a major threat to patient safety (“Centers for Disease,” 2016). As a result, IC practitioners recognize the importance of preparing nurse faculty to engage clinical staff in the application of EBPs to prevent infections.
Safety is a primary concern in the health care environment, but there are still many preventable errors that occur. In fact, a study from ProPublica in 2013 found that between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year suffer preventable harm in the hospital (Allen, 2013). Safety in the healthcare environment is not only keeping the patient safe, but also the employee. If a nurse does not follow procedure, they could bring harm to themselves, the patient, or both. Although it seems like such a simple topic with a simple solution, there are several components to what safety really entails. Health care professionals must always be cautious to prevent any mishaps to their patients, especially when using machines or lifting objects, as it has a higher
Although the importance of aseptic technique has been continually reiterated, I have realised its substantial role in the perioperative environment. Aseptic technique refers to the practice of creating and maintaining a sterile environment used for sterile procedures (Laws, 2010a). This is incredibly important as repetitive minor breaches of the sterile environment is one of the major factors increasing the risk of surgical site infection (Harrop et al., 2012).