1.4.7 Infection Control Case Study 4 Feedback
The following feedback for the chapter case study is meant to provide guidance for your own practice. The answers provided are suggestions, and you may have additional ideas which are not covered below. Then, the resolution of the case as it occurred in real life is provided for your reference.
What do you do?
Always remember: you must do no harm. You are responsible to try and educate persons to the need to follow the precautions regardless of who they are. You should advise the person that they may not know, but you have just set up the precaution supplies for them outside of the room and you can help them find anything they need. You should remind them of the type of precautions and hand them the proper PPE if needed.
Do you stop them?
You may not be able to stop them, but insisting they have access to the PPE is your goal.
If you stop them, what will you say to them?
You may want to inform them that the precautions were just determined for all who go into the room.
How would you encourage them to don the PPE as required?
Offer to assist them to put on the PPE if needed.
If they do not don PPE, what will you do next?
Report them to the supervisor and write up an incident report. This documentation is needed in the event the person chooses to go into another room, as they may be spreading the infection, and this incident report will be helpful in tracking.
Resolution
In this real-life case, the staff member did speak to the person trying to enter the room. This person was a medical professional who stated they did not need the PPE as they were only going in for a minute and would not be compromised. The staff member reported this person using an incident report. The person without PPE was in the room 15 minutes (longer than they expected), and they did not complete hand hygiene prior to engaging with other patients on the way back to the station desk. The infection then spread to two other clients. Due to the incident report, it was tracked to that one medical professional.
