The US center for disease control and prevetion (CDC) yesterday released new guidelines for infection prevention in outpatients. They aim to protect patients by setting minimal expectation of safe care in an outpatient setting.
Recently outpatient care has risen dramatically in the US however compliance with usual infection prevention practices has slackened off. Michael Bell, deputy director of CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion reflects this saying, "Patients deserve the same basic levels of protection in a hospital or any other health care setting."
This problem is further exacerbated as a signifcant proportion of outpatients come from vulnerable patient populations, therefore reducing the risk of HCAIs is crucial.
To improve the situation CDC have published several guidelines and materials such as the 'infection prevention check-list for outpatient settings.'
They have also created a new, free, certified continuing medical education course. This course can be found on the Medscape Education Web Site.
They also made a series of other recommendations listed below.
Other recommendations for outpatient facilities and practices include the following:
Infection prevention and occupational health programs should be developed, implemented, and maintained.
Written infection prevention policies and procedures, based on evidence-based guidelines, regulations, or standards, should be developed to address services provided by each facility.
All healthcare personnel, including those employed by outside agencies and available by contract or on a volunteer basis to the facility, should receive job- or task-specific infection prevention education and training focusing on principles of both healthcare provider safety and patient safety.
Sufficient and appropriate supplies needed to comply with standard precautions should always be available. These precautions should include hand hygiene, use of personal protective equipment, safe injection practices, respiratory precautions, cough etiquette, and environmental cleaning and maintenance of reusable medical equipment according to the maker's instructions.
Staff's compliance with infection prevention practices should be monitored regularly with audits and competency evaluations.
To evaluate infection control practices, facilities should use CDC's infection prevention checklist for outpatient settings.
Facilities should comply with local, state, and federal requirements regarding HAI surveillance, reportable diseases, and outbreak reporting.
Healthcare personnel should always follow procedures to ensure safe handling of medical equipment that may be contaminated.
Healthcare personnel should always follow safe medical injection practices.
The full guide can be found at this link here
