the weekly source for radiology professionals

Infection Control

This month, the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Radiology departments have been focusing on infection control education. Children's offer infection control tip sheets and classes at least twice a year to ensure all staff understand the importance of basic infection control precautions. Since we have been offering these sessions, Children's hand washing compliance has improved by 15 percent (measured by random audits) and staff have been able to better communicate infection control standards during random tracers. Staff also has a better working knowledge of antibiotic resistant organisms and can easily communicate isolation precautions and personal protection equipment requirements. Offering an infection control class has really improved staff knowledge and compliance with infection control standards.

Comments
i was impressed with your format for providing information regarding infection control ( hand washing)! Frequently staff are instructed in hand washing (even the technique) but not given the data or facts you were refering to. I personally would be more willing and compliant if i had the facts to back up the process.
# Posted By denise | 5/20/08 5:12 PM
I agree that actually seeing facts and figures written down has a great impact. What a wonderful idea! We have Computer based learning for our hand washing class, but there are few facts given (none specific for our hospital), and it addresses the hand washing technique, but I think an actual video or demo would be better. I am going to pass the idea of the fact sheet on to infection control here.
# Posted By Karen | 5/28/08 7:59 AM
Having a graph to complement those numbers would go even further. Great info. Thanks.
# Posted By Iva | 5/29/08 7:28 PM
With an emphasis on infection control, the rate of hospital acquired infections should decrease. I really like the idea of a computer based class on infection control. I also think educating staff about antibiotic resistant infections and the necessary PPE for these patients is great. Without the correct information, staff either overreacts to antibiotic resistant infections or fails to protect themselves appropriately.
# Posted By Judy | 5/29/08 9:55 PM
Thanks for sharing that. I am looking forward to more information from you. We are an outpatient facility that has anastesia come in once a week for other office procedures. We are thinking of having them sedate peds for us so we can do CT scans on them. I would like to hear more about your sedation procedures. Pros/Cons.
# Posted By karen | 5/30/08 8:20 AM
Great idea! I work in a clincial setting and believe that facilities such as ours could benefit as well. A clinical environment may not be exposed to such a vast amount of infecton, but nonetheless with penicillin resistant bacterias semming so prevalent, healthcare workers need to protect patients as well as your self. Thanks for sharing!
# Posted By Angela | 5/30/08 9:59 AM
I totally agree with the infection control class idea . . . I work for a radiology program, and we try to give our students constant reminders about ALL infection control policies consistently. Although, it might be better for us to do an online class randomly through their two years, just as a refresher!
# Posted By Emily | 5/30/08 10:09 AM
APEX Award ASBPE Award APEX Award ASHPE Award