Prevention of hospital acquired infections
Effective infection protection for hospitals and health care professionals
Health care professionals understand more than anyone the impact that infections can have on their organisation and the people in their care.
Hospital acquired infections such as MRSA and C.diff can have serious implications for immune suppressed patients. They can result in severe disruption to the organisation’s ongoing operations, add to the staffing burden, increase costs and diminish hard won reputations.
To combat infections, good personal and environmental hygiene constitute the first steps to a proper infection prevention and defence mechanism.
Good Personal Hygiene
Personal hygiene and in particular hand hygiene is critical in preventing the spread of HAIs.
The WHO recommends the use of alcohol sanitisers for frequent disinfection, and frequent hand washing in the event of a C.diff outbreak. For this Diversey recommends Soft Care Med H5 alcohol gel and mild hand disinfectant soap Soft Care Sensisept H34.
To understand when to wash your hands Diversey recommends following the World Health Organisation’s Five Moments of Hand Hygiene:
- before patient contact
- before an antiseptic task
- following the risk of exposure to body fluids
- following patient contact
- following contact with the surroundings of patients
Good Environmental Hygiene
Diverseys disinfectants are highly effective against a wide broad spectrum of bacteria and viruses, however over use of disinfectants is unnecessary and not cost effective. Therefore Diversey recommends that premises are cleaned thoroughly every day with a high quality detergent paying particular attention to surfaces that are frequently touched. Disinfection can then be targeted to surfaces that hold a high risk of contamination. Alternatively a two in one cleaner/disinfectant product like Oxivir can offer a fast and effective option for environmental cleaning saving time and reducing the ecological burden caused by over using chemicals.
Find out more about Diversey's detergent antiseptics and disinfectants.