Healthcare-associated Infections (HAI) (Nursing)

00:01 All right, so we talked about that chain of infection.

00:04 Now we're gonna talk about that in the healthcare setting.

00:07 So healthcare-associated infections are one of the biggest issues in healthcare we have today.

00:12 We typically call them HAIs.

00:15 So if you see this acronym, this is very common and you'll probably see this again in charting, in the healthcare system or in your nursing curriculum.

00:23 So we're talking about HAIs.

00:26 These are infections that can occur as a result of an individual receiving a care or treatment from healthcare professionals.

00:35 Now the issue with HAI, is the problem is us as health care's usually inflict this on other patients.

00:41 These can result in longer length of stays, really poor patient outcomes, complications, and a lot of the times even death.

00:50 So with HAIs, we've got to think about high risk individuals.

00:54 These can be several different populations, such as those that are poorly nourished, elderly patients, weak, or someone with a weakened immune system, or chronic and multiple illnesses.

01:06 Now, the longer you're in your nursing curriculum or your nursing program, you're gonna to notice that patients have many of these factors so the risk of a healthcare-associated infection is great.

01:19 So we're talking about HAIs, they're associated again, with many factors, and many of them in nursing, we cannot control but we need to consider these.

01:28 So nursing, for example, cannot influence age, right? So your younger adult is typically not as susceptible as your older adult patient.

01:39 We also got to think of the site of infection.

01:42 This can matter in regards to the bloodstream or respiratory.

01:46 There's different sites of the infection that can make huge differences on a patient outcome.

01:52 Also, the disease process and treatment therapy, we can't necessarily change that in nursing.

01:58 And we've got to think about the number of invasive procedures.

02:02 Unfortunately, when a patient's in there, we've got in the hospital, we have to think about several different diagnostic procedures to treat the patient, or maybe even to find the diagnosis.

02:12 So because of the numerous invasive procedures the patient may have to undergo, their healthcare-associated infection risk is very high.

02:22 And lastly, don't think of-- don't forget about those things before the hospital.

02:26 What are their habits? Do they have a lot of stressors? What's their nutritional status? These can all affect healthcare-associated infections.

02:35 In nursing, we don't really have a lot of control over these.

02:38 However, we can influence a lot of factors and that's where we come in and good practice comes in, such as washing your hands, looking at vital signs and disinfect whenever possible.

02:51 We can influence with just some of these things, the length of stay for the patient.

02:56 We also can make sure we're taking infection precautions such as again, gowning, and gloving using personal protective equipment and washing our hands.

03:07 The other thing nursing can influence and we are the big frontline people on this is, how long is a central line or maybe an indwelling catheter in the patient.

03:18 Now we have lots of protocols in the hospital to help us evaluate those to help us make a decision and when to remove these lines.

03:26 These are typically in the patient, and because anytime something foreign is in the body, you're at risk for infection.

03:33 So as nurses, we need to do daily assessment and be diligent about removing these when they are not necessary.

03:40 So the number of healthcare employees contacting the patient, we can cluster our care.

03:45 You probably are thinking, well, how can we stop from going into a patient room? You're totally right, we can't do that but we can cluster the amount of care and the number of times that we go into the room.

03:57 We can also minimize visitors when the patient is definitely at risk for infection.

04:02 And lastly, don't forget about that post-hospitalization plan of care.

04:07 So are there things that we can educate the patient and let them know 'hey, if you follow these instructions, this can definitely reduce your risk of healthcare-associated infections'.