Infection prevention has been an important topic for years Argos Care Group, according to director Nicoline van der Hagen. Even more so since Corona. “I will never forget how visitors had to stay outside the walls of the nursing home. Their loved ones were alone in their room behind the window. Since then, the phrase ‘lock the house’ has had a lot of meaning behind it. Never again! That’s partly why we wanted to have an expert In infection prevention (DI) within the company.
Edward already worked at Argos Zorggroep as a professional nurse and started training to become a doctor in 2022. He worked 3 days a week Franciscus Gastois and Fleetland. This is a recognized workplace College Healthcare Training (CZO). Nikulin already worked with this hospital. During training, Edward worked one day a week at Argos Zorggroep as an executive director. Now that he has the diploma, the distribution of working days has been reversed. This means that he now works 3 days at Argos Zorggroep and 1 day in hospital.
What three advantages does your infection prevention expert have?
1. Custom tips and instructions
Existing knowledge from involvement in projects, such as good hand hygiene or proper use of gloves, for example ABR networkIt takes part in consultations and the Infection Prevention Committee. It also brings new knowledge, useful protocols and laboratory results from the hospital. He translates this knowledge and information into home care.
Example: According to the guidelines, you have an outbreak with two infected residents and you must close the department to prevent spread. Edward: We’re looking at what’s still possible with customization. Can we work with face masks, so everyone can go out?
This way he can quickly provide tailored advice to different departments on infection prevention policy. Or he can have them look at each other to see how the other has organized something. Because he knows nursing homes and their departments well, he can also take construction impacts into account. Or advise what cleaning agent a resident’s closet can handle, for example.
Edward: I am close to direct care and can respond to problems in the moment or visit in person. In aged care, it’s also a good idea to experiment a lot and see how you can change staff behaviour. We have actually become more aware that as employees we are the biggest publishers.
You can also hire a DI, for example, for 4 hours a week, but this is often limited to (general) advice.
Come to the inspiration meeting “Together at Home to Prevent Infection” on June 17
Collaboration between healthcare professionals, informal carers, volunteers and the self-employed is key here. Be there and gain knowledge and ideas about good infection prevention, too in the future! to sign up
2. Quality improvement of care and treatments
Employee DI ensures continuity, allowing you to achieve qualitative improvements in care and treatment. Nikulin: Thanks to cooperation with the hospital, we can contact the infection prevention department of the hospital. For example, if Edward is absent for a longer period of time.
Examples of improvements include updates to the Infection Prevention Manual and infection prevention policies to reduce the number of outbreaks. Edward: “This year, for the first time, there were two nursing homes with a completely positive health check!” In previous years, they still recorded deficiencies in 4 to 5 areas.
With the hygiene check, you can register 30 components. This is also called auditing. Examples of parts:
- Employee cleanliness
- Storage of sterile materials
- Hazard analysis and critical control points For department kitchens, this relates to risk assessment of food items
Most information also first reaches the hospital, for example about the increase in the virus. Edward: Thanks to communications, we had already seen an increase in influenza A cases in the Schiedam and Rotterdam regions, before the RIVM warned of an epidemic. I was able to advise our doctors early on to expand their PCR testing policy and pay attention to basic hygiene.
3. MRSA recording upon admission
Through the training, Edward was put on the right track to gain insight into which residents and staff could be carriers of diabetes MRSA. MRSA is a skin bacteria.
You can identify carriers through a risk inventory for residents and new employees, which is preferably recorded centrally. Finally, the MRSA outbreak is also affecting the central activities of many departments.
The most important thing is to prevent people from staying in their rooms because they are transmitters of infection. Nikulin: “How do you explain, for example, if someone no longer knows that a cup is a cup due to advanced dementia?” this is not possible. The consequences should be as small as possible for the population.
Cost sheet
The hospital provided work guidelines. Argos Zorggroep paid for salaries and training costs. There is also a financial support Available for training.
Nikulin: ‘As an organisation, you just have to have those financial resources available and be willing to release them. Given the importance we place on infection prevention, we wanted to. On the other hand, you can save costs through good infection prevention. Consider reducing absenteeism in the event of an outbreak and reducing replacement and material costs. What comes first in our approach is the health and well-being of customers.
Participate in working together to prevent infection
Do you want to start improving hygiene and infection prevention? Working Together for Infection Prevention is happy to support your organization in this regard. Behavioral change and collaboration are central to this approach.
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