Infection Control for Measles for Healthcare- myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theInfection Control for Measles for Healthcare. Answer: Introduction: A significant chunk of Healthcare is associated with infection and prevention or management of it. Since the very beginning of human civilization, infections has been one of the greatest reasons behind the loss of a huge proportion of lives, due to racing outbreaks of different infection pathogens. However, the Healthcare industry has advanced considerably, and in the new and improved amendments of Healthcare standards, outstanding infection control policies deserves a specific recognition. These infection control policies have been extremely beneficial for facilitating successful management and even prevention of potential infection epidemics (Miller and Palenik 2014). This assignment will focus on infection control policies and a possible breach situation taking the example of measles infection. Risk factors and risk event: Measles is considered to be one of the most highly contagious infectious diseases, and it is known to target 20 million people on an annual basis. The measles virus is considered to be an airborne pathogen and it is easily transmitted from one person to another by the affected person coughing or sneezing anywhere near the unaffected individual. The motor method of transmission from one person to another phase wire aerosolized droplet nuclei, hence the infection control policy for this virus needs to focus both on airborne routes and direct contact. Hard hygiene policy is an absolute mandate for handling measles patient along with use of personal protection equipments to avoid direct contact transmission, as per the NSW infection control policy (Health.nsw.gov.au. 2017). Example of Breach: Although the main purpose behind the infection control policies are to ensure optimal health and safety for both the patients in the Healthcare facility and the staff caring for patience with measles or any other infectious diseases, infection control policy breach is also an unintentional albeit common occurrence. In this scenario, infection control policy breach can easily occur by either the care staff not using PPE while handling a measles patient or by not maintaining the 5 moments of hand hygiene strictly. And as the mode of transmission for this disease is airborne via serialized droplet nuclei such a breach can avail cause an outbreak of hospital acquired measles infection in the facility (Maltezou and Wicker 2016). Strategies for prevention of breach: While adherence to infection control policies are extremely necessary in case of health care facilities, it also needs to be mentioned that a breach is mostly unintentional and facilitated by a mishap in one of the meticulous steps of the protocol. The health care staff responsible for a breach are penalized heavily as well, when, keeping the workload and burnout under consideration, a mistake can always occur. On the other hand a infection control policy breaches can be effectively avoided if a step by step policy compliance strategy can be implemented (Ma etval., 2016). The very step to this strategy should be analysis of the breach situation, identify caption of the contributing factors behind the breach, and finally qualitative analysis of these reasons to formulate strategies to avoid these issues from being formed. The next step should be a diligent and strict monitoring body that can overlook the activities of the care providers and their level of compliance to the infection control policies. Third step should be periodic evaluation of whether the staff has the access to adequate infection control supplies. Often the health care staff do not have enough understanding of the benefits of infection control policies, and often they do not have skills to adhere to each component of the protocols. A training and skill improvement workshop focussing on infection control policies can be exponentially beneficial in helping the staff understand the value of infection control and the direct benefits of this policy on the health and safety of both the patients and themselves (Lim, Ho and O'reilly 2016). Dissemination of information: Infection control guidelines are important legislative guidelines and a breach in the infection control policies demand legal and lawful consequences. In the face of a policy breach, the legal guidelines direct at both verbal and formal communication of the breach information to all key stakeholders, such as. The disclosure of any subjective or objective data to outside personnel is strictly prohibited and is considered violating the privacy and confidentiality (Filia et al., 2016). Conclusion: Measles is a fairly common yet alarmingly contagious infectious diseases, and therefore strict infection control policies are implemented to keep the outbreak of this particular virus under complete control. However infection control policy breach poses a significant threat to avoiding such outbreaks; although it can be concluded that adhering to a simple and organized strategy can drastically improve compliance to such policies and prevent policy breaches before it can take place. References Filia, A., Bella, A., Cadeddu, G., Milia, M.R., Del Manso, M., Rota, M.C., Magurano, F., Nicoletti, L. and Declich, S., 2015. Extensive nosocomial transmission of measles originating in cruise ship passenger, Sardinia, Italy, 2014.Emerging infectious diseases,21(8), p.1444. Health.nsw.gov.au. (2017). Influenza. [online] Available at: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/Influenza/Pages/default.aspx [Accessed 19 Sep. 2017]. Lim, L.L., Ho, S.A. and O'reilly, M., 2016. In-flight transmission of measles: Time to update the guidelines?.American journal of infection control,44(8), pp.958-959. Ma, C., Gregory, C.J., Hao, L., Wannemuehler, K.A., Su, Q., An, Z., Quick, L., Rodewald, L., Ma, F., Yan, R. and Song, L., 2016. Risk factors for measles infection in 07 month old children in China after the 2010 nationwide measles campaign: A multi-site casecontrol study, 20122013.Vaccine,34(51), pp.6553-6560. Maltezou, H.C. and Wicker, S., 2013. Measles in health-care settings.American journal of infection control,41(7), pp.661-663. Miller, C.H. and Palenik, C.J., 2014.Infection Control and Management of Hazardous Materials for the Dental Team5: Infection Control and Management of Hazardous Materials for the Dental Team. Elsevier Health Sciences.