Infection Control Research Paper

Words: 762
Pages: 4

Is there such a thing as washing your hands too much? While some individuals may think infection control can be excessive e.g. washing hands, nurses should take infection control very seriously. Infection control can and does save hundreds of lives daily. Infection control is helpful for the patient and the nurse, it inhibits a healthy internal and external environment, and it has been proven to systemically be effective. Understanding infection control and prevention, applying it to my clinical setting, along with providing patient teaching will help me become a better student nurse while transitioning into a professional.
First, what exactly is infection control in healthcare? “Infection control, also called infection prevention and control,
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As I move forward in my clinical, a question tends to arise. As a nursing professional, “Do I have enough knowledge to understand how infection control works?” Hand hygiene, donning personal protective equipment and understanding the hospitals policy on infection control will improve my ability to provide patient-centered care. Nurses along with medical professionals must be vigilant in their attention to infection control protocol. Unknowingly, individuals practice most of the guidelines for reducing the spread of sickness by practicing proper hygiene. Many are common sense behaviors already practiced by most people in and out of health care facilities. “These actions include, cough-and-sneeze etiquette, immunizations (injections to prevent illnesses), safe procedure methods, and management of outbreaks.” (Dziak, 2015, para. 4) According to Dramowski, Marias, Willems, and Mehtar, “Knowledge, skills and desirable clinical practices in infection prevention and control (IPC) should be acquired during undergraduate medical training. Although knowledge and skills are learnt in the formal curriculum, attitudes and practices are assimilated by observation and modeling.”(Dramowski, Marais, Willems, & Mehtar, 2015, p. 45). What this statement means to me is going into my clinical I will be given all the information I need to be successful in infection prevention and control. I am doing my second clinical rotation in Oncology and becoming familiar with reverse isolation. Based on my nursing research I can thoroughly wash my hands and wear PPE to protect the patient as well as myself from getting any type of