Essay on COVID Infection Control Plan
Infection control programs provide a multi-pronged approach to dealing with disease transmission. These include but are not limited to standard precautions, droplet precautions, and airborne precautions. In preparation for an infectious disease with potential outbreaks, hospitals can implement these precautions to reduce the risks from these infectious pathogens and avoid their public health consequences. This paper outlines a hospital infection control plan for another COVID outbreak. Hire our assignment writing services if your assignment is devastating you.
The COVID control plan addresses the key enablers of COVID-19 spread in a hospital setting, which include equipment, technique, and personnel. The hospital’s ability to obtain the necessary infection control equipment is important in infection control. These include personal protective equipment (PPEs) such as facial protection, protective gowns, and gloves; hand-washing equipment such as soap and running water; and other housekeeping tools such as tools required to handle and transport linens and for adequate disinfection of surfaces. Hand-washing is particularly important in COVID control. COVID diagnostic equipment should also be available in the hospital to aid in diagnosing the disease. Hospital administration should provide sufficient hand-washing points within the hospital’s premises to facilitate frequent and appropriate hand-washing. They should also avail soap along with alcohol or non-alcohol-based hand sanitizers to help caregivers observe proper hand hygiene. Hospitals should also avail themselves of the necessary PPE to minimize the spread of the virus (Battista et al., 2020). These include gloves, surgical face masks, face shields, and goggles.
The infection control plan also takes into consideration hospital personnel. The institution of an infection control committee is essential in this respect. This committee shall comprise hospital epidemiologists, healthcare administrators and financial officers, infection preventionists, physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and other healthcare providers. Their primary role is to oversee the implementation of an infection control plan. Particularly, the epidemiologist coordinates with other hospital departments and administrators to establish the available resources, assess their adequacy, and organize how the hospital can bolster its resources to enhance its preparedness. They also oversee the implementation of the infection control plan and propose quality improvements that may be necessary. Infection preventionists may be nurses with qualifications in infection control. The committee will work concertedly to enhance providers’ capacity to handle COVID, boost their knowledge of infection control, including best practices in COVID-19 control, and define their primary roles when responding to COVID-19 infections.
The hospital can use several techniques to implement the plan successfully. As such, establishing isolation areas within the hospital may prevent virus transmission from infected individuals. Current guidelines in establishing isolation areas are based on the standard and transmission techniques that direct that all patients presenting to the hospital should be presumed to be infected, thus allowing precautions to be taken against all the patients (Shbaklo et al., 2021). Intense screening of the virus is another technique that may help identify patients who need to be isolated. Also, screening for COVID-19 symptoms, such as fever, may help with the early detection of the virus (Rivett et al., 2020). Patients with symptoms suggestive of the disease should be fronted for diagnosis. Subsequently, early diagnosis of COVID-19 enables prompt initiation of therapy and may save the lives of vulnerable populations (Shbaklo et al., 2021). Hospital surveillance of the virus is also essential in infection control. Hospital surveillance should target areas where the highest rates of infections are observed, such as the ICU. Health information technologies such as the EHR may facilitate surveillance of the disease. These strategies will ensure adequate virus control and minimize its health impact on the hospital staff and the communities.
Conclusion
Infection control remains vital in mitigating the risk of infectious diseases. An integrated infection control plan for COVID-19 considers the personnel, equipment, and techniques in infection control. Hospitals should ensure adequate availability of the necessary equipment, enhance their personnel preparedness, and utilize the best techniques to achieve optimal infection control.
References
Battista, R. A., Ferraro, M., Piccioni, L. O., Malzanni, G. E., & Bussi, M. (2020). Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in Covid 19 pandemic. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 63(2). https://doi.org/10.1097/jom.0000000000002100
Rivett, L., Sridhar, S., Sparkes, D., Routledge, M., Jones, N. K., Forrest, S., Young, J., Pereira-Dias, J., Hamilton, W. L., Ferris, M., Torok, M. E., Meredith, L., Gupta, R., Lyons, P. A., Toshner, M., Warne, B., Bartholdson Scott, J., Cormie, C., Gill, H., … Weekes, M. P. (2020). Screening of healthcare workers for SARS-COV-2 highlights the role of asymptomatic carriage in COVID-19 transmission. ELife, 9. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.58728.
Shbaklo, N., Lupia, T., De Rosa, F. G., & Corcione, S. (2021). Infection control in the era of COVID-19: A narrative review. Antibiotics, 10(10), 1244. https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10101244.
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
We’ll write everything from scratch
Question 
Essay on COVID Infection Control Plan
Now that you are familiar with the basics of a healthcare infection control program develop a plan for another COVID surge (similar to the first one in March 2020) in a hospital or nursing home setting and indicate how it would be addressed. Include all aspects, including isolation areas, use of PPE, supplies and equipment, etc.