Safety and Quality: Preventing and Controlling Healthcare-Associated Infections

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Safety and Quality: Preventing and Controlling Healthcare-Associated Infections

Safety and quality are critical in the healthcare sector of any nation. Provision of healthcare services is a vital process, and it is the role of the government to ensure there is efficient and sufficient delivery of these services. Many factors such as regulations, funding, and collaboration affect the quality and safety of healthcare services. However, appropriate frameworks and standards are vital to facilitate the creation of a better health care system. Each country develops its framework and standards suitable for managing the health care system to deliver quality and safe services. This paper seeks to use scholar literature to provide a critical discussion of the Australian health care system by analyzing the framework and standards used to improve the quality and safety of healthcare services. The paper will focus on discussing the standard of preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infection as well as analyzing how clinical isolation in relevant to the standard.

Australia strives to achieve safety and quality in health care through the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC). The commission is responsible for leading and coordinating national improvements through a framework that entails three core principles namely consumer-centered, information-driven, and organized for safety (O'Rourke, 2007). This principle guides the healthcare sector to achieve safe and high-quality care in all aspects of healthcare across the nation by setting out the policies and procedures needed to achieve this vision. This framework was endorsed as the Australian nationwide safety and quality framework by Health Ministers in 2010 (Trezona et al., 2018). The three core principles outline twenty-one areas for action that all individuals should take to facilitate the delivery of quality and safe healthcare services.

This framework influences every aspect of the Australian health care system. All the stakeholders including, the government, all health care providers, consumers, managers, and other agencies need to adhere to this framework in providing safety and quality in healthcare services. The government regulates the provision of these services by health providers through the set out laws and policies (Donabedian, 2018). For instance, the government sets the protocol for nurse qualification and registration. Other organizations, consumers, and health providers use this framework to advocate for improvements in specific areas in the process of providing safety and quality in health care. The framework encourages collaboration among all the stakeholders to build evidence about safety and quality in the health care system. It forms a basis of strategic and operational plans aimed at improving the provision of healthcare services to all people.

Each principle focuses on providing a mechanism for reinforcing the current strategies and activities for improving safety and quality as well as focusing on the long-term strategy for a better future.  The principle of consumer-centered ensures all the safety and quality improvement activities are tailored according to consumer needs. The healthcare system focuses on the needs of consumers by providing services that meet consumer needs (Greenfield, 2017). Consumer-centered facilitates the provision of safety and quality services because it reduces the chances of applying systems, strategies, or procedures that are out of date or those that would have minimal effect. It helps to avoid generalization of processes and strategies which might reduce the effectiveness of such operations due to factors such as mismatch.

The health care system is also information-driven meaning it relies on research and innovations in all aspects. The relevant stakeholders are responsible for collecting data and information necessary for analyzing and creating solutions to some of the challenges the sector faces. Significant research is carried out to find the possible ways that should be used to improve specific aspects of the health care system. The information which is obtained from stakeholders such as consumers, records, and other literature sources facilitates the creation of better ideas and strategies for improving safety and quality in health care (Miles et al., 2019). The principle of driven by information also ensures that the Australian health care system makes significant investments in technology and innovations (Allen et al., 2016). Information obtained from research studies is used to create better ways for service delivery such as better treatment methods, the invention of new drugs, and developing new systems for running health care facilities. Technological innovations ensure the provision of new and state-of-the-art equipment that is more efficient and safe. Research also facilitates improvement in operational services and other related activities.

The principle for organized safety ensures that the framework aims to achieve a high level of safety in all operations related to health care. It focuses on all the regulations, procedures, and processes that take place in the health care system. The government and other responsible organizations have a responsibility to ensure there are appropriate policies for guiding all the processes in health care (Waring et al., 2016). The regulations ensure that all health care facilities comply with the procedures and guidelines set out. For instance, each health care facility should have adequate and proper medical equipment depending on the number of consumers they serve. These safety regulations help to minimize the occurrence of accidents or malfunctioning of process or equipment.

Also, besides the framework, the commission entails National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards that guide the health care system to improve service delivery as well as protect the public from harm. These standards play a significant role in managing healthcare service for instance, in the registration of nurses (Usher et al, 2018). Some of the standards include clinical governance, comprehensive care, and preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infection. These standards describe the type of service that all health care organizations should provide to consumers. They describe the delivery systems required to improve the safety and quality in health care. Clinical governance ensures that all health care organizations have proper governance to facilitate the running of activities and operations. Proper governance in clinics improves the safety and quality of services delivered since all operations run effectively (Lloyd et al., 2018; Bloomer et al., 2019. It also ensures that healthcare organizations adhere to the core principles of the health care system. Comprehensive care ensures that all health care facilities provide a high level of services to consumers. All organizations should focus on delivering quality services through quick responses, proper communication, and proper medication.

However, although the above framework and standards play a vital role in improving safety and quality in health care, the Australian health care system still faces several challenges. For instance, inadequate funding which results in limited investment in research and innovation. Research and technological innovations require a lot of financing that might be difficult to achieve. Collaboration between the stakeholders is also limited thus minimizing finding and accessing adequate information essential for improving safety and quality in health care.

The standard of preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infections aims creates mechanisms that aim to minimize the frequency of healthcare-related infections. It was developed in line with the Australian guidelines, evidence, and recommendations concerning prevention and control of infection in healthcare. The standard was set out to help minimize the risk of transmission and spread of healthcare-associated infections. Through this standard, it is possible to identify and isolate patients with infectious agents. Various strategies are used to achieve successful infection prevention and control across the healthcare system. These strategies are there to effectively manage healthcare-associated infections by protecting patients from acquiring these preventable infections. The preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infection standard need to partner with other standards such as clinical governance and medication safety standard in improving safety and quality in health care. The infection and control programs include activities such as isolation that help to manage preventable healthcare-associated infections.

Isolation involves the activities directed at separating individuals from patients harboring infectious agents. Isolation includes various precautions and guidelines to facilitate management of transmission of infectious agents in a healthcare setting (Wyer et al., 2015). All health care organizations should have these precautions and guidelines and should make preventing transmission of infectious agents a priority in the occupational and patient safety program of the health care organizations. The guidelines and precautions for isolation are administrative responsibilities, and they ensure the process runs efficiently. For instance, the administration should provide sufficient ventilation systems for airborne isolation rooms (AIIR’s). Also, it should involve infection control personnel in isolation operations such as the design of airborne infection isolation rooms.

Isolation also involves education and learning to manage the risks involved during the process. For instance, the provision of instructional resources for patients and visitors regarding hand or respiratory hygiene recommendations is necessary. Organizations should have a task-specific education and training to guide patients and staff during orientation to the facility regarding preventing transmission of infectious agents (Greenfield et al., 2015). The training program should target all individuals including laboratory staff and housekeeping staff to enable them to understand the guidelines and precautions for isolation in prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections. Isolation also involves surveillance that ensures monitoring of the target population. Surveillance during isolation enables to collect information that might be used with other procedures and devices to identify transmission of infectious agents in the facility.

There are various risks associated with the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections. Isolation tries to minimize the risks of infectious spread during prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections although there are still other risks involved. Low safety and quality in healthcare influence the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections in several ways. When there is a limited focus on the guidelines and precautions such as isolation in healthcare facilities it increases the chances of spread of infections such as airborne diseases (Bond et al., 2016). There would be no facilities or equipment to help the prevention of such diseases, and this could lead to high costs of treatment. Prevention is better than cure, and failure to prevent and control of healthcare-associated infections could lead to the spread of the infectious agent that might result in prolonged illness or sometimes death.

Outcome data regarding clinical care could be collected, analyzed and fed back for improvement through various ways. Since the Australian healthcare system is centered on the principle of driven by information, it needs to invest in research and collection of data significantly. Collection of data requires cooperation from the various stakeholders including consumers, managers, and healthcare providers. Also, there should be sufficient equipment and personnel for data collection (Harrison et al., 2019). The research team should determine the appropriate methods for collecting data and analyzing the data to create meaningful information. The process of data collection is critical since it will determine the outcome of the entire study on how to improve safety and quality in health care. Therefore, the team should strive to be efficient by using the best methods, target the right population, and analyze the data to create accurate information.

Data on clinical care could be collected from various sources including consumers. Data from consumers could be collected through methods such as the use of questionnaires and surveys to obtain information regarding specific areas. The observation could also be used to look for data, for instance, to see the symptoms of a particular healthcare-associated infection. The research team could also obtain data from healthcare records regarding healthcare-associated infections. Such records and documents would assist in determining significant information such as the types of healthcare-associated infections in specific areas, the spread of a particular healthcare-associated infection, the signs and symptoms, medical treatment, and any other relevant information regarding healthcare-associated infections (Magiorakos et al., 2017). The records of healthcare organizations could also help in determining the type of governance, the guidelines and procedures used, and whether the healthcare organizations comply with the Australian healthcare framework and standards. Other sources of data include literature on healthcare where the research team could collect data regarding relevant topics in context. For example, one could study literature sources about a similar healthcare-associated infection in another region across the globe to determine how the issue was successfully addressed. Literature sources by experts in the field could also be significant for analysis when researching a particular aspect of clinical care.

The collected information is then analyzed critically to create information for improvements in clinical care. Data analysis could be achieved through methods such as qualitative and quantitative methods to develop accurate information regarding the topic under study. The qualitative analysis could be used when analyzing data regarding the best way of preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infections (Russo et al., 2015). This could be achieved by comparing various potential ways and determining the best in a particular context. Data analysis helps to learn the areas of improvement such as clinical governance and the standards of healthcare across the nation. Prevention and control involve a wide range of aspects that could be analyzed to find the solutions and ways of improving safety and quality in healthcare. The findings should be communicated back to the relevant stakeholders including the government, consumers, and healthcare providers (Brown, 2009). For instance, a new procedure for preventing and controlling a particular healthcare-associated infection could be communicated to healthcare providers to help them deal with widespread infection.

In conclusion, the Australian healthcare system strives to achieve improvement in quality and safety in health care. The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) entails a framework and standards that are responsible for leading and coordinating the healthcare system. The framework involves three core principles of consumer-centered, information-driven, and organized for safety. Prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections is one of the critical standards that aims to achieve improvement for safety and quality in health care. This standard describes the level of procedures, guidelines, and process applied during the management of healthcare-associated infection. However, the Australian healthcare system still faces several challenges such as inadequate funding in research and technological innovations. Clinical isolation is a relevant activity to the standard of preventing and controlling healthcare-associated. It involves separating patients in a healthcare facility to prevent and control the spread of infectious agents. However, investing in research and data collection is significant for finding better ways of improving safety and quality in healthcare. The qualitative analysis could be used to analyze the data to create useful information regarding improving safety and quality in health care that could be communicated to stakeholders such as healthcare givers.