Hospital Acquired Infections Flashcards
What are hospital acquired infections?
Infections which are acquired by patients during hospitalisation.
An infection should be considered ‘hospital acquired’ if it occurs within 48hours of hospitalisation up to 30 days after discharge.
What are some common hospital acquired infections?
UTIs, pneumonia, bloodstream infections, SSIs, & infectious diarrhoea.
What are some of the ‘costs’ of hospital acquired infections?
Client dissatisfaction. Longer hospitalisation times. Higher morbidity rates. Multidrug resistance. Transmission to humans.
What are 3 routes of infection?
Surgery. Urinary catheters. Intravenous catheters. Indwelling implants/devices. Feeding tubes. Contaminated kennels & equipment.
What patients are more at risk?
Elderly/young.
Immunocompromised.
Invasive devices.
Endocrine disease (with diabetes/cushings).
What is the cause of UTIs?
From the use of urinary catheters - either repeated placement for samples or emptying the bladder or poor hygiene when placing/managing an indwelling urinary catheter.
Where can animals get pneumonia from?
Endotracheal tubes/circuits.
How can you prevent pneumonia?
SOP for cleaning tubes.
Dispose of heavily soiled ET tubes & circuits.
What can cause bloodstream infections?
Associated with intravenous catheters either peripheral or central.
Mainly due to a lack of hand hygiene but also due to contamination of products used.
Also can be from poor skin preparation techniques.
What does infection control mean?
The use of procedures & techniques in the surveillance, investigation, & compilation of statistical data to reduce the spread of infection, particularly nosocomial infections.
Name three methods of reducing infections.
Cleaning accommodation & equipment in between patients using correct disinfectants at the correct dilutions (SOPs).
Correct disposal of bodily fluids & wastes.
Handwashing.
Barrier nursing when appropriate.
Education of the veterinary team.
Where should patients that are severely infectious/highly contagious be housed?
In isolation with a dedicated nurse.
Where should you house vaccinated/systemically well patients?
House in normal wards.
Where should patients with mild infectious disease/draining wounds be housed?
Housed either within wards or isolation. If in wards, the section should be taped off & should be nursed last.
When should multi resistant infections be suspected?
If a patient is not responding to antibiotics or if a patient has any significant risk factors.
