Infection Prevention Practices: Someone Is Watching You!
I seems like every aspect of your nursing care is being measured and monitored. Regardless of where you work, you probably are participating in some quality initiative in your department.
The Partnership for Patients (PFP) is a federal initiative whose aim is to improve care by reducing preventable adverse events. The PFP has 12 indicators right now - 4 of which are infection related for acute care hospitals: prevention of UTI, central line infections, surgical site and ventilator associated pneumonias.
Ambulatory care centers are required to follow CMS regulations for environmental issues and safe injection practices among others. Long-term care facilities must provide documentation of how many residents received vaccinations.
All of this means that someone in your facility will be tracking compliance with these measures. With more use of electronic medical records, tracking these events will be easier but we still need the personal interaction to provide feedback - both positive and negative. We probably all agree these measures reduce infections and we like it that someone ensures that other people - like the housekeeper - is doing their job correctly.
So what causes lack of compliance with these infection prevention measures? Lack of equipment, poor training, limited time? How do we ensure compliance among nurses? And how do you feel about someone checking on the care you provide?