Mod 5: Protecting Patients and Ourselves Flashcards
Set of precautions to prevent transmission of infectious agents that remain infectious over long distances when suspended in the air.
Airborne Precautions
Extensive, detailed regulations to be practiced by employers and employees to prevent occupational exposure.
Bloodborne Pathogen Standard
A type of isolation used when a patient is infected with or carrying an epidemiologically important organism that can be spared by body-to-body contact.
Contact Precautions
Mutual touching of two individuals or organisms; many communicable diseases may be spread by direct contact between an infected and a healthy person.
Direct Contact
Measures to reduce the risk of droplet transmission of infectious agents.
Droplet Precautions
Recommended safety glasses, chemical splash goggles, or face shields to be used when handling a hazardous material.
Eye Protection
A personal protective device (PPE) to shield the facial area from contamination.
Face Masks
Object that may harbor microorganisms.
Fomite
Sterile or clean fitted coverings for the hands, usually with a separate sheath for each finger and thumb.
Gloves
A robe or smock worn in operating rooms and other parts of hospitals as a guard against contamination.
Gowns
The removal of visible soil and the removal or killing of transient microorganisms from the hands accomplished by using soap and running water or an alcohol-based hand rub.
Hand Hygiene
Transmission achieved through some intervening medium, such as prolongation of a communicable disease through the air or by means of fomites.
Indirect Contact
A government agency in the Department of Labor that strives to maintain a safe and healthy work environment.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
Specialized clothing or equipment worn by employees for protection against health and safety hazards and designed to protect many parts of the body, for example, eyes, head, face, hands, feet, and ears.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
A continuous source of infectious disease; people, animal, and plants may be reservoirs of infection.
Reservoir of Infection
Species of microorganisms that are always present on or in the body and are not easily removed by mechanical friction.
Resident Flora
The passing of a communicable disease from an infected host individual or group to a nonspecific individual or group, regardless of whether the other individual was previously infected.
Route of Transmission
Container in every clinic that is designed for the disposal of sharps; required and regulated by OSHA
Sharps Container
Guidelines recommended by the CDC for reducing the risk of transmission of bloodborne and other pathogens in hospitals; the standard precautions synthesize the major features of universal precautions (designed to reduce the risk of transmission of bloodborne pathogens) and body substance isolation (designed to reduce the risk of pathogens from moist body substances) and apply them to all patients receiving care in hospitals regardless of their diagnosis or presumed infection status.
Standard Precautions
Microorganisms that may be present in or on the body under certain conditions and for certain lengths of time; they are easier to remove by mechanical friction than resident flora.
Transient Flora
Safeguards designed for patients documented or suspected to be infected with highly transmissible or epidemiologically important pathogens for which additional precautions beyond standard precautions are needed to interrupt transmission in hospitals.
Transmission-Based Precautions
Carrier of disease
Vectors
