Hand hygiene protects you and those receiving the care you provide. The simple act of cleaning your hands can prevent the spread of germs, including those that are resistant to antibiotics. Some healthcare personnel may need to clean their hands as many as 100 times during a work shift. Keeping the skin on your hands healthy and clean is a challenge that requires all healthcare personnel to be knowledgeable about how to care for their hands and when hands should be cleaned.
Healthcare personnel can be exposed to pathogens and subsequent infections while they are working. Occupationally-acquired infections in healthcare settings are infections caused by pathogens transmitted to healthcare personnel following exposures that occur in their workplace. Exposures could occur as a result of contact with coworkers, patients, visitors, environmental surfaces, medical devices (e.g., needlestick injury), or other healthcare sources. The resources on this page are intended to support occupational infection prevention and control in healthcare settings and to protect the health and safety of healthcare personnel, patients, and visitors. https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/oai-hcp.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fhai%2Fprevent%2Fppe.html
1. Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control
2. Guideline for Disinfection and Sterilization
3. Toolkit Evaluating Environmental Cleaning
See next
Please read the Guideline for Disinfection and Sterilization in Healthcare Facilities (2008)
https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/index.html
Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities (2003)
https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/environmental/index.html
The One & Only Campaign is a public health effort to eliminate unsafe medical injections.
Led by CDC and the Safe Injection Practices Coalition (SIPC), the campaign seeks to raise awareness among patients and healthcare providers about safe injection practices, which are critical to the overall safety of healthcare delivery.
Unsafe injection practices put patients and healthcare personnel at risk of disease transmission, including bacterial infections like MRSA or bloodborne pathogens like hepatitis C virus.
https://www.cdc.gov/injectionsafety/one-and-only.html
Use personal protective equipment (PPE) whenever there is an expectation of possible exposure to infectious material.
Isolation Precautions: https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/isolation/index.html
Category IA
Strongly recommended for implementation and strongly supported by well-designed experimental, clinical, or epidemiologic studies.
Category IB
Strongly recommended for implementation and supported by some experimental, clinical, or epidemiologic studies and a strong theoretical rationale.
Category IC
Required for implementation, as mandated by federal and/or state regulation or standard.
Category II
Suggested for implementation and supported by suggestive clinical or epidemiologic studies or a theoretical rationale.
No Recommendation, Unresolved issue
Practices for which insufficient evidence or no consensus regarding efficacy exists.
Please read the Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings (2007):
https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/isolation/index.html
In view of the evidence that transmission of many healthcare acquired pathogens (HAPs) is related to contamination of near-patient surfaces and equipment, all hospitals are encouraged to develop programs to optimize the thoroughness of high touch surface cleaning as part of terminal room cleaning at the time of discharge or transfer of patients. Since dedicated resources to implement objective monitoring programs may need to be developed, hospitals can initially implement a basic or Level I program, the elements of which are outlined below. Some hospitals should consider implementing the advanced or Level II program from the start, particularly those with increased rates of infection caused by healthcare acquired pathogens
https://www.cdc.gov/hai/toolkits/Evaluating-Environmental-Cleaning.html
Injected medicines are commonly used in healthcare settings for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of various illnesses. Unsafe injection practices put patients and healthcare providers at risk of infectious and non-infectious adverse events and have been associated with a wide variety of procedures and settings. This harm is preventable. Safe injection practices are part of Standard Precautions and are aimed at maintaining basic levels of patient safety and provider protections. As defined by the World Health Organization, a safe injection does not harm the recipient, does not expose the provider to any avoidable risks and does not result in waste that is dangerous for the community
https://www.cdc.gov/injectionsafety/index.html
Occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens from needlesticks and other sharps injuries is a serious problem, resulting in 385K needlesticks and other sharps-related injuries to hospital-based healthcare personnel annually. Similar injuries occur in other healthcare settings, such as nursing homes, clinics, emergency centers, and private homes. Sharps injuries are primarily associated with occupational transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but they have been implicated in the transmission of more than 20 other. The resources on this website have been developed by CDC to help healthcare facilities prevent needlesticks and other sharps-related injuries to healthcare personnel.
https://www.cdc.gov/sharpssafety/index.html