Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAIs) and Hand Hygiene

Okay, so first up, we're talking about different types of hospital-acquired infections. You'll see a whole list here of different types. But what I actually want to draw your eye to is what is in the italicized definition at the top here. We have two different terms that I want you to be familiar with: nosocomial and iatrogenic. So nosocomial means originating in the hospital. For instance, I go to the hospital to have surgery. I don't have MRSA, but while I'm in the hospital, I acquire MRSA. First of all, that's a hospital-acquired infection, but second of all, you may hear that called nosocomial.Another word you want to know is iatrogenic. So iatrogenic means coming from a procedure.So for instance, I go to the hospital. I don't have a urinary tract infection. They place an indwelling Foley catheter in me, and I get a catheter-associated urinary tract infection, a CAUTI. That is now a CAUTI, we can call it that, but we can also call that an iatrogenic infection because it came from a procedure or intervention. Very important terms to know. Okay. So let's move on to how to prevent these.So I'm looking at card number 47 right now. Very important. There's a whole list here. I'm not going to go through all of them. But you will see that the thing on this card that is bold and red, meaning very important, is hand hygiene. Proper hand hygiene is the most important step in the prevention of nosocomial infections. Another One thing we can do is room cohorting, meaning that we put patients together based on their condition. So if I have two patients with MRSA, for instance, they should go together versus both of them being given a room with someone who doesn't have MRSA. That doesn't make any sense. So make sure that we are cohorting, putting together, based on diagnosis. We also want to post signs outside the door if there's any sort of transmission precautions. We're going to want to put PPE outside the door and have disposable equipment inside the room so that once the patient has been discharged, we can get rid of that equipment and not spread those germs to other people. We're also going to want to limit our invasive procedures. So if I don't need to start an IV, let's not do that. That's another opportunity for infection, right? If I don't need to start an indwelling catheter, let's not do that. We want to limit those invasive procedures and only do it when we absolutely must. And then, of course, we're going to want to do whatever kind of maintenance of invasive things that needs to be done. This is going to be per facility policy. But things like changing IV tubing, IV sites, performing catheter care, giving proper care to wound drains, all of those things are going to be very important for minimizing your patient's risk for a nosocomial infection. Lastly, we are going to be talking about hand hygiene. So you'll see here on card 48, it sounds super simple. But we actually have a lot of bold and red content on this page along with a super important key point. So let's break it down. There's two ways to do hand hygiene. One is soap and water. And one is with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Now, this is what you will see most commonly in the hospital because we don't have time to stop and fully wash our hands and make sure that we're doing a good job when we equipment. This is crucial for healthcare workers, especially in light of the current pandemic. So make sure to stay tuned for that. And as always, thank you for watching and take care! Equipment and the different types of isolation and transmission precautions: what you need for that. Super-duper important, so you're going to want to subscribe to the channel to make sure you're the first one to know when that posts. Thanks so much and happy studying! I invite you to subscribe to our channel and share a link with your classmates and friends in nursing school. If you found value in this video, be sure to hit the like button and leave a comment to let us know what you found particularly helpful.