Infection
Control and Medication Safety
Infection Control
Preventing Infections in the Hospital
Infections can occur after many types of medical procedures
and tests. There are several things you can do to help prevent
infections from developing during your stay in the hospital.
• It is very important that family members and anyone
assisting in your care wash their hands before working with
you.
• Wash your hands carefully after handling any type
of soiled material. This is especially important after you
have gone to the restroom.
• Since you are a member of your healthcare team, do
not be afraid to remind doctors and nurses about washing their
hands before working with you.
• If you hand an I.V., keep the skin around the dressing
clean and dry. Tell your nurse promptly if the dressing works
loose or gets wet.
• If you have any type of catheter or drainage tube,
let you nurse know promptly if it becomes loose or dislodged.
• If possible, ask your friends and relatives not to
visit if they themselves feel ill.
• If you have diabetes, be sure that you and your doctor
discuss the best way to control your blood sugar before, during
and after your hospital stay. High blood sugar increases the
risk of infection and delays healing.
• If you are a smoker, you should consider a smoking
cessation program. This will reduce the chance of developing
a lung infection while in the hospital and may also improve
your healing abilities following surgery.
• It is important that you turn, cough, and deep breath
(as instructed) after surgery. This will reduce the chances
of you developing a lung infection.
• It is important that you get out of bed (as instructed)
after surgery. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or sufficient
pain medications.
AMC offers several community
education programs to benefit your health. Click the link
for more information on these programs.
Medication Safety
Our medication use review group is taking a very proactive
role in making medication use safer both in our hospital and
out in the community. We are doing this by building in processes
and med error prevention steps such as using more advanced
technology (like barcoding), computer safety checks to catch
errors before they happen, warning labels and staff training.
Community opportunities like the county fair and other programs
are used to educate about medication safety at home. Free
wallet cards that patients can use to list their current medications
are provided as well. But most importantly, we are changing
how we think about errors so we can develop a culture or atmosphere
of safety at our hospital. Medication safety is very important
to us! |
