Write a report on Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute care/Inpatient Setting?

Introduction

Patients in acute care settings acquire HAIs (Healthcare associated infections) from the inpatient environment (CDC, 2018). These preventable infections predominantly impact the pattern of health, wellness, safety and prognostic outcomes of the treated patients. Indeed, at least 4% patients in the inpatient settings develop HAIs and associated debilitating manifestations. The major types of HAIs in the acute care hospitals include pneumonia, urinary tract infections, gastrointestinal infections, preliminary blood stream infections and surgical site infections. These infections substantially elevate the healthcare burden of the acute care settings to a considerable extent (CDC, 2018). Nurse professionals require coordinating with multidisciplinary healthcare teams to prophylactically manage HAIs and associated complications. 

Solution Focussed Approach

Inappropriate antibiotic utilization, age advancement, absence of hygiene and sustained defects in nursing care approaches substantially predispose the treated patients in terms of acquiring HAIs in the inpatient settings (Turner, et al., 2015). Healthcare professionals in coordination with the multidisciplinary healthcare professionals require practicing de-escalation and rotational antibiotic therapy with the objective of minimising the risk of HAIs in acute care settings (Revelas, 2012). De-escalation approach emphasizes the requirement of administering broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy to the high-risk patients in the acute care setting. Rotational antibiotic therapy focuses on minimizing antibiotic resistance in the treated patients while effectively withdrawing the antibiotic of interest for a small duration. Furthermore, acute care settings require updating guidelines regarding staffing of the infection preventionists (IP) with the objective of maintaining an appropriate IP: patient ratio for infection prevention in the inpatient settings (Stone, et al., 2014). Nurse professionals in the Australian healthcare settings require practicing standardized transmission-based precautions through organizational support to effectively reduce the frequency of HAIs. These precautionary measures/policies necessitate the utilization of hand hygiene techniques, environmental cleaning interventions and contact/droplet/airborne precautions for controlling the transmission and establishment of multi-drug resistant organisms in acute care settings (Australian_Government, 2010). The implementation of these integrative approaches is necessarily required to reduce the burden of nosocomial infections in the inpatient settings.

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