Isolation Precautions in Healthcare

What are isolation precautions you might be wondering? Isolation precautions are "practices of infection control to reduce or eliminate the transmission of pathogens" (Foundations Of Nursing).Some of these precautions include gowns, gloves, and masks. Isolation precautions came to exist in order to protect other patients and yourself from the patient with deadly and contagious dieses such as tuberculosis."The fear of contagious disease... dates from at least biblical times where people with leprosy or plague were usually segregated from the rest of the society" (Nursing Standard). The most common way to spread microorganisms is by physical contact with someone such as a effortless hand shake. As with any patient, it is essential to change gloves between any dealings. As a nurse, your uniform becomes the most contaminated with microorganisms, frequently from the environment. When it comes to dealing with patients hand hygiene is the most important.

Standard Precautions reduce the risk of spread of microorganisms from both recognized and unrecognized sources of infection in hospitals. " The use of standard precautions assumes that every person is potentially infected or colonized with an organism that could be transmitted in a health-care setting. As its name implies, standard precautions require the health-care worker to routinely follow basic principles of infection control, such as hand hygiene " (British Journal of Nursing ). The most important things to take into consideration is hand washing donning gloves, donning masks, and donning gowns. During patient care, there is no such thing as reusable equipment, each patient needs new equipment when being assisted. The environment in which the patient is being...

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... germs were being transmitted? Hand hygiene itself has made a major impact of the infection prevention and healthier patients. Improvements in hand hygiene resulted in reductions in gastrointestinal illness of 31% and reductions in respiratory illness of 21%. ( American Journal of Public Health). It is very important to know that you have to wash your hands before walking into and exiting the patient's room.

All of these precautions have a lot of similarities and differences. Airborne, Droplet, and Contact, share hand- washing and patient transportation should be limited, and patient should be kept in a isolated room. the difference is that In Airborne you have to wear a NIOSH approved N-95 mask. While transporting a patient you don't have to wear a mask when it comes to droplet precautions. And in contact precautions you have to wear gloves and gowns as well.