International Nurse’s Day is celebrated on May 12th, while World Hand Hygiene Day is celebrated on May 5th every year.   With this in view, in this issue’s Cover Story, we will look at the role Nurses Play in Hospital Infection Control.

Hospital Infection Prevention and Control (HIPC) is a practical, evidence-based approach which helps in preventing patients and healthcare workers from being harmed by infections. This involves creating and implementing policies and procedures to minimize infection rates in hospital settings.

Principles of Hospital Infection Control

• • • Hand Hygiene: Hand hygiene is the most important measure to prevent the spread of infections among patients and health care providers.

    • Respiratory Hygiene / Cough Etiquette.

    • Sharps Safety.

    • Safe Injection Practices.

    • Sterilization and Disinfection of Patient-Care Items and Devices.

    • Environmental Infection Prevention and Control.

The Nursing Department in our hospital plays an important role in Hospital Infection Prevention and Control.

A team of Nurses is involved in the HIPC process. There are several aspects to it, which we will analyse here.

1.  Collaborative effort between clinical departments and infection control team.

Infection control nurse will take samples from across the hospital of different departments and then get the samples ananlysed by the Infection Control Officer and report to the clinician the result. At SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram, IT plays a critical role in the reporting process. Any abnormal values are immediately conveyed as a critical alarm to the physician’s mobile phones. Based on the values adequate measures are taken to rectify the issue.

2.  Link nurses, nurse educators and nurse professionals play an important role in establishing the foundation for hospital infection control and monitoring of hospital acquired infections, infection prevention and control:

The dedicated link nurses capture the data of hand hygiene compliance data in hospitals HMIS, which is analyzed monthly by Hospital Infection Control officer and this, is discussed in the Hospital Infection Control Committee for further evaluation and necessary action.

3.  ICN plays an important role in reducing the risk of healthcare associated infections by implementing hand washing, regular monitoring and training needs.

The Infection Control Nurse acts as a supervisor for implementation of hand hygiene by visiting all the clinical departments every day. She also monitors the hand washing procedure of the staff and evaluates and provides need based training. The ICN also organizes internal and external training programmes in consultation with the Infection Control Officer of the hospital. 

4.  Professional protective equipment- raising awareness of appropriate use of PPE including, Gloves, Gowns and Eye protection, sanitization and decontamination monitor and implement standards of sterilization and decontamination procedure to insure proper sterilization of equipment.

The ICN makes sure that every department has the PPE available. When there is an infected or without report emergency case. She will specifically monitor whether the PPE is adequately being used in that situation. Afterwards she will monitor the process of sterilization and disinfection of articles which were used for the procedure.

 Environmental Hygiene of the Hospital- regular cleaning, disinfection of patient room and common area.

The hospital environment is cleaned with Hypochlorite solution of different concentrations monitored by the ICN. Weekly the hospital surrounding area is cleaned by the hospital housekeeping staff monitored by the ICN. 

6.  Bio-medical waste segregation- implements proper biomedical waste segregation and monitors compliance.

The BMW starts at the source, that is the clinical areas of the different departments. All the in-charges and link nurses are responsible for monitoring the BMW segregation properly at source. The ICN supervises the units regularly. Once is 24 hours the BMW segregation of different departments is collected in a designated are on the campus. The ICN will monitor the weight of the BMW bags enters these details online in the Pollution Control Board of the state.

7.  Periodically training the different cedar of hospital Staff regarding evidence base infection control practice and awareness program for better patient care.

The ICN organizes training programme for the new staff regarding the Infection Control Protocol and practice in the hospital.

8.  Report to the Infection Control Officer and Nursing Superintendent.

The day to day activities of the Infection Control are reported to the Infection Control Office and the Nursing Superintendent on a daily basis.