3. Javier Ratchett: Hospital Acquired Infection Flashcards
What is a HAI?
-Infections patients get white receiving treatment for medical/surgical conditions
-Many HAIs are preventable
What usually causes HAIs?
Invasive devices such as catheters/ventilators used in medical procedures
Where do HAIs typically occur?
- Acute care hospitals
- Ambulatory surgical centres
- Dialysis facilities
- Outpatient care
- Long-term care facilities
What is a central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI)?
- serious HAI that occurs when pathogens enter the blood stream through the central line
- results in 1000s of deaths
What is Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)?
-Type of bacteria resistant to many antibiotics
-Causes life-threatening bloodstream infections, pneumonia and surgical site infections
What are 2 sources of HAI?
- CLABSI
- MRSA
What are the 5 common types of HAIs?
- Catheter-associated urinary tract infections
- Surgical site infections
- Bloodstream infections
- Ventilator-associated pneumonia
- Clostridium difficile
Why are HAIs important ?
-source of complications across the continuum of care
-can be transmitted between different health care facilities
What are the 4 risk factors of HAIs?
- Medical procedures and antibiotic use
- Organisational factors
- Patient characteristics
- Behaviour of healthcare providers and interactions with healthcare system
How can we reduce the occurrence of HAIs?
- Proper education and training of healthcare workers to increase compliance
- Infection control
- Hand hygiene
- Attention to safety culture
- Antibiotic stewardship
What are a few examples of ‘best practices’?
- Careful insertion, maintenance, prompt removal of catheters
- Careful use of antibiotics
- Decolonisation of patients - evidence based method to reduce transmission of MRSA in hospitals
Why do HAIs tend to occur in outpatient settings?
Limited capacity for oversight and infection control compared to hospital-based settings
What is the chain of infection?
Sequence of events that show how infectious diseases spread
Outline the Chain of Infection.
- Agent leaves its reservoir/ host
- Through portal of exit
- Mode of transmission
- Enters through portal of entry
- Into susceptible host
What is the reservoir of an infectious agent?
Habitat in which the agent normally lives, grows and multiplies
-inc: humans, animals and environment
What are asymptomatic/passive healthy carriers?
Those who never experience symptoms despite being infected
Who are incubatory carriers?
Those who can transmit the agent during the incubation period before clinical illness begins
Who are convalescent carriers?
Those who have recovered from their illness but remain capable of transmitting to others
Who are chronic carriers?
Those who continue to harbour a pathogen for months/years after initial infection
-e.g/Hep B
What is zoonosis?
Infection disease that is transmissible from vertebrate animals to humans
What are examples of environmental reservoirs?
-plants/soil/water
-usually fungal agents
What is the portal of exit?
-path by which a pathogen leaves its host
-usually corresponds to site where pathogen is localised
-some blood borne agents can exit by crossing the placenta from mother to foetus (syphilis)
-exit through cuts/needles in skin (Hep B)
-blood sucking arthropods (malaria)
What are the two classifications of modes of transmission?
- Direct: direct contact; droplet spread
- Indirect: airborne; vehicle borne; vector borne
What is direct transmission?
Infectious agent is transferred from a reservoir to a susceptible host by direct contact or droplet spread
