11/24/2023 0 Comments Medical asepsis meansContact precautions are used with persons who have infections that can be transmitted by direct or indirect skin-to-skin contact, such as wounds infected with resistant bacteria. Gown, masks, and gloves are usually worn by healthcare personnel and visitors when they are in the room of a patient with droplet precautions. Droplet precautions are used for persons with known or suspected diseases that can be spread through larger infectious particles that are released by coughing or sneezing, such as polio or measles. When airborne precautions are implemented, as with a person who has an active tuberculosis infection, negative-pressure airflow rooms assure that the extremely small tuberculosis bacteria will not enter other patient rooms, and specialized masks are used by both hospital staff and the patient to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. Additional sets of precautions are used for persons with documented infections and include airborne precautions, droplet precautions, and contact precautions. Isolation means setting apart a person with a known infection. Likewise, barrier protections are used to prevent patients from being exposed to body fluids or surface disease-causing organisms that might be present on or in the healthcare worker.Īdditional infection control measures are based upon isolating or grouping together (cohorting) persons with infectious diseases according to how the disease is spread. Standard precautions assumes that any patient's body fluid, tissue, or secretion could be potentially infectious until determined otherwise, and along with handwashing, barrier protection such as latex (or a latex alternative) gloves, disposable gowns, and masks should be used as appropriate to avoid exposure to them. The concept of standard precautions is the infection control foundation for healthcare workers, and is used universally in the developed world. The cornerstone of infection control involves breaking the cycle of infection and interrupting the transmission of disease-causing organisms. Sanitization does not leave surfaces sterile, but reduces the amount of disease-causing microorganisms to an insignificant level. Sanitization is sufficient for other surfaces in the healthcare setting (and at home or in the community) to prevent infections. Asepsis is designed to leave a surface sterile, free from microorganisms, and is used in surgery and for procedures where surfaces of medical equipment such as instruments or wound dressings will come in contact with sterile areas of the body. Compounds that are used to achieve asepsis are termed antiseptics. This was the beginning of the modern concept of aseptic technique.Īsepsis is defined as the absence or removal of disease-causing (pathogenic) microorganisms. In the decades after Lister's method became popular, post-operative patient deaths dropped to less than 1%. By killing the bacteria before or immediately after they contacted the wound, infection was minimized. Later, this was shown to be due to the killing of bacteria that were present in the air of the operating room or on the clothing or gloves of the health care providers. When he applied a spray of disinfectant over a patient's wound during surgery, Lister showed that post-operative infections could be markedly reduced. British surgeon and scientist Joseph Lister (1827–1912) changed the role of surgery by demonstrating the value of infection control. Instead of being a life-saving measure, surgery was a desperate last resort when all other treatments had failed. Up until the mid-nineteenth century, the death rate following surgeries was over 50%. History and Scientific Foundationsīefore infection control and asepsis were recognized, surgery was often a death sentence for the patient. Infection control professionals (ICPs) are usually nurses, physicians, medical technologists, or epidemiologists, and their main focus is to investigate and gather data about existing infections in order to take the appropriate actions to contain them and prevent future infections. Most hospitals have dedicated infection control practitioners on staff, whose job it is to oversee the infection control procedures as specified by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). Almost two million people in the United States acquire a nosocomial (hospital or health-care-related) infection each year, adding more than five billion dollars to health care costs annually. Steps that are taken to reduce or prevent infection in health care settings are known as infection control.
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