Fighting Hospital Based Infections
Hospital acquired infection prevention is a primary focus of good nursing care. As nurses, we make decisions every day that impact the patient’s ability to avoid infections. Maintaining universal precautions, reviewing and improving nursing care basics like dressing change procedures, and remaining current on ongoing practice based research.
Nurses around the world are working to improve patient care through their research into what simple changes nurses can make in their practices to improve patient outcomes. The key word here is SIMPLE.
Simple Interventions – Oral Care
Nurses in Tel Aviv have been researching one deceptively simple intervention to prevent the development of pneumonia in patients on ventilators. The nurses in the study found a direct correlation between the incidence of pneumonia and brushing patient’s teeth three times per day.
While more research needs to be done to find a definitive relationship between brushing patient’s teeth and pneumonia in these at-risk patients, the study seems to indicate that good oral hygeine and other simple interventions are all part of the overall care for ventilator patients that improves their outcomes.
What do you think?
I would love your input on this article about simple interventions and others like it. What simple interventions have you used to improve patient care outcomes? Click the comment link below and share your ideas with other readers of the Nursing Show blog or email me at comments@nursingshow.com.
