The rate at which infections and diseases can take hold and spread is truly staggering. When uncontrolled, infection can overwhelm even our best modern medical techniques and have a devastating impact. It is therefore of paramount importance that all health workers understand the fundamentals of infection control and know what actions they need to take to ensure that they do not present a risk to anyone.
Infection control doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive; all you need to do is get your workers into the right habits. Once that’s taken care of, then everything else will fall into place. No matter what stage of your education or training you are at, or even if you have been working in the field for some time, you need to always be mindful of infection control practices.
Don’t be Complacent
This is the most important infection control tip. Many health workers assume that because their role involves minimal patient contact, they don’t need to worry so much. However, regardless of the type of health facility in question, there will be a higher concentration of people who are sick and vulnerable among those attending.
It doesn’t matter what your role is or where you work. You can’t afford to be complacent with your infection control. When you and your workers are complacent, things are overlooked and easily avoidable mistakes are more likely to occur. The consequences of poor infection management can be serious, so make sure that you treat them with the appropriate gravity.
Wear PPE
One of the most important aspects of ensuring that your facility is as germ-free as possible is for your staff to wear PPE clothing, also known as personal protective equipment, throughout each shift, and change into fresh PPE as instructed. Doing so is a sure way to prevent patients from catching HAI’s, which will often increase the length of their hospital stay.
Hire an Infection Control Consultant
As we said above, complacency is a serious issue in many health facilities and is one of the main reasons that infections are spread. Part of that complacency often comes from the assumption that a facility full of healthcare workers doesn’t need anyone to tell them how to manage infections effectively.
However, businesses like Infection Control Results offer consultation services. They can evaluate your business’s current approach to infection control and help you to devise more effective processes for minimizing the spread of infection.
Allocate Responsibility to an Individual
One of the main advantages of hiring a dedicated infection control consultant is that you then have a single individual who can direct your infection control efforts and who can be held accountable. This means that the staff at your facility will also know where they can turn whenever they have any questions or concerns about infection control.
Signpost Everything
You probably don’t think about all the health and safety signs that you see throughout the day. Many bathrooms include signs about the importance of washing your hands, for example. These little prompts are actually very effective at encouraging people to follow them and are a fantastic way of minimizing the potential for infection to spread.
Infection control is largely a matter of common sense. Make sure that you provide plenty of handwashing stations and other sanitary facilities for your workers to use, as well as direction on when and how to utilize them as effectively as possible.