Assignment: Developing An Intervention

Assignment: Developing An Intervention
Assignment: Developing An Intervention
The significance of this Health Problem
HAI is one of the major population health issues that affect the United States healthcare system. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has reflected its objective to reduce and eventually eliminate hospital-acquired infections through the Healthy People 2020 initiative. Health People 2020 identifies some of the risk factors that increase the chances of acquiring infections while receiving medical care. These include antibiotic use and medical procedures, organizational factors, lack of handwashing among healthcare workers and individual patient characteristics (Healthy People 2020, 2014). Various preventive strategies have been developed in a bid to eliminate HAIs, but research shows that these strategies have only been effective in reducing 70% of the infections (Sievert et al., 2013). Therefore, there is still the need to make more changes to reduce the infections and the morbidity and mortality that they cause. Research shows that proper education and training of healthcare workers in one of the most important strategies that can help to reduce infections in healthcare (Umscheid et al., 2011). This strategy helps to improve the best practices for healthcare workers to enhance the quality of care that they provide to patients.
Research Question
Does handwashing education among healthcare workers compared to lack of handwashing education help to reduce the rate of healthcare-associated infections among the elderly population in healthcare facilities within a year?
P: Elderly population within healthcare facilities
I: handwashing education
C: lack of handwashing education
O: reduce the rate of healthcare-associated infections
T: a year
Conclusion
In spite of the many strategies in place to improve the quality of healthcare, HAIs are still a great population issue affecting medical institutions in the United States. Many strategies have been put in place to eliminate these infections, but there are still patients who are affected while in the course of treatment for other medical issues. There is need to create and improve more strategies that will enable the complete eradication of HAIs.
References
Healthy People 2020 (2014). Healthcare-associated Infections. Retrieved from: https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/healthcare-associated-infections
Sievert, D. M., Ricks, P., Edwards, J. R., Schneider, A., Patel, J., Srinivasan, A., … & Fridkin, S. (2013). Antimicrobial-resistant pathogens associated with healthcare-associated infections summary of data reported to the National Healthcare Safety Network at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009–2010. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 34(1), 1-14. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/668770
Umscheid, C. A., Mitchell, M. D., Doshi, J. A., Agarwal, R., Williams, K., & Brennan, P. J. (2011). Estimating the proportion of healthcare-associated infections that are reasonably preventable and the related mortality