Preventing Hospital-Acquired Infections In Hospitals

In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.

Infection on the individual can be a risk to residents, Increase time in recovery, increase length of stay, loss of earnings and cause potential death.

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) will begin to display signs and symptoms within 48 hours. In order to treat the infections, physicians need to diagnostic tools quickly. The manufacturer of new diagnostic test makers, Kalorama Information stated last year that the world demand for testing and treatment of HAI will be over 10 billion dollars by the year 2015, increasing from 9 billion dollars in 2010. Kalorama also stated that HAI has a 5% infection rate of 40 million hospital visits a year, causing 100,000 deaths in the U.S. annually (Kalorama Information, July 14, 2011). Early diagnosis will improve the patient's outcome and decrease the chance of death. According to Kalorama, 20-30% of the HAI can be prevented by the simple use of better hand washing and cross contamination avoidance although the others need more intensive changes such as hospital ventilation systems and using more disposable supplies (Kalorama Information, p. 113) .

Checking in to the hospital comes with a heavy price tag, and sometimes you get more than what you bargained for. As highly trained doctors, nurses, and staff make their way through the hospital, they carry with them microbial agents of disease. Although regarded as centers for treatment and prevention, hospitals are also known to harbor nosocomial, healthcare-associated, bacterial infections. These infections can be a result of overused or inappropriately used antibiotics and the breaching of infection containment policies by patients and staff. Though health-care-associated infections have been decreasing, one infection inciting nosocomial bacterial, Clostridium difficile has been rampant. It is important that inefficiencies in health-care be met with stringent efforts for prevention as they may lead to distressing financial, emotional, and medical repercussions.

Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), specifically those involving multi-drug resistant organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) are associated with increased morbidity and mortality, as well as higher cost of healthcare and longer length of hospital stays for patients. Each year, millions of people acquire infections while receiving care, treatment, and services in hospitals and other health care organizations.

As a hospital, quality care should be a priority for patients that are going to be treated for a sickness, or any type of procedure that is going to take place. A lot of times a patient gets an infection while they were at the hospital, on top of being treated for what they original came in for. Health facilities should be environments of healing, which they are, but they also have tons of various types of germs and infections, which grasp onto individuals that have weak immune systems/are sick. Some infections that are at hospitals are Tuberculosis, VRE, VAP, C-Diff, UTI, and MRSA. Preventive measures to stop the spread of the infections is lacking tremendously in the work and aim to provide safety for all patient’s health. The work

Health-care associated infections (HAI), which individuals obtain while they are receiving healthcare for another condition, have been prevalent for many years in health care. These infections have led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives and have cost the U.S. health care system billions of dollars each year as they are a significant cause of illness and death (ODPHP, 2017). The Healthcare-associated infections Action Plan, developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services, was developed to provide a map for preventing HAIs in these health care facilities. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the prevention of HAI provision of the ACA is intended to achieve higher value, synthesize evidence that the policy has

While stewardship is extremely important to slow the rate of resistance, we must also make sure that patients in need of antimicrobial therapy receive the treatment they need. Price of medication and overly cautious prescribers are two of many barriers that patients may experience; as clinicians it’s important that we do our part to promote appropriate and affordable treatments. Ideally, prescribers could determine the exact pathogen using a swab or culture of the infected tissue. This would prevent misdiagnoses and reduce unnecessary costs to the

Hospital acquired infections are one of the most common complications of care in the hospital setting. Hospital acquired infections are infections that patients acquired during the stay in the hospital. These infections can cause an increase number of days the patients stay in the hospital. Hospital acquired infections makes the patients worse or even causes death. “In the USA alone, hospital acquired infections cause about 1.7 million infections and 99,000 deaths per year”(secondary).

(KArch) We as human-hosts are not just helpless victims, our continuous reliance on antibiotics treatment helps contribute to the ever growing problem. The increased and inappropriate use of antibiotic therapy is the main cause of these antibiotic resistant bacteria. Patient this day and age are often prescribed pills for every condition. Patients come into doctors’ offices demanding antibiotics and healthcare providers are filling these orders. This in turn contributed to this growing chain of antimicrobial resistance.

The misuse of antibiotics has the potential to set society back in time to the dark ages. It is time to end the careless use of these valuable antimicrobial that so many take for granted. Antibiotic resistance continues to expand and evolve and solutions to this epidemic need to implemented. By establishing stewardships, educational programs, and restrictions it teaches the severity of this issue and action that must be taken in order to decrease resistance. Antibiotic resistance is a multifactorial issue. Introducing preventative measures in hospitals will be most effective in reducing resistance, as well as eliminating the trend of misusing antibiotics.

Recent studied suggest that effecting reduce in HAIs around 70 % with present prevention practices. Its economic merit of using these prevention practices is approximately between $25.0 billion and $ 31.5 billion of medical cost. Their goal is Prevent, decrease, and eventually eradicates healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

Many people use antibiotics to protect themselves, but some of them are harmful to our immune systems. Antibiotics only use to kill bacteria not viruses. As a result, the overuse of antibiotics causes more harm than good if people are not used the right way. (familydoctor.org editorial stuff, 2014). However, bacteria have become resistant to some antibiotics because the antibiotics used to kill it has been overused. (CPS, 2011). This essay will first describe the definition of antibiotics. Secondly, the causes of antibiotics overusing. Thirdly, the effects of antibiotics overusing. Fourth, solutions of prevent antibiotics overusing. Lastly, the conclusion of this essay.

As a surgical Technologist in the Operating room, I have witnessed first hand the destruction and suffering that bacteria can have on the body. Some infections only cause minor discomfort and inflammation. Other bacteria such as streptococcus can cause horribly debilitating diseases such as Necrotizing Fasciitis1. I have also seen that bacterial resistance can play a central role in the outcome of a patient and their future life. Resistance can even determine if a person lives or dies from a bacterial infection. This is in no way more present to me than in the life of my grandmother who, through years of diabetic complications and treatment, is now left with less than a handful of antibiotics that will work to treat her conditions. Dr. Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organization said it best, “Without urgent, coordinated action by many stakeholders, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill.”2 With how many people that have infections today, the topic of antibiotics is of utmost importance. The aim of this paper is to look at the history of antibiotics, how they work and why they are not working now, and the possibility of better antibiotics in our future.

The overuse of antibiotics has been a problem for well over a decade. This misuse leads to many nonvisible problems arising within the human population. As the use of antibiotics increases, the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria also increases. When bacteria become resistant to an antibiotic, another antibiotic must be used to try and kill it and the cycle becomes vicious. Michael Martin, Sapna Thottathil, and Thomas Newman stated that antimicrobial resistance is, “an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society” (2409).