Infection control assignment on how nurses can improve their infection management skills and knowledge

Question

Task: How can nurses improve their infections management skills and knowledge using infection control assignment research techniques

Answer

Introduction
This infection control assignment explores how nurses can improve their infection management knowledge and skills using infection control assignment research strategies. Advanced practice has been regarded as a level of practice rather than a practice type. The advanced nurse practitioner must possess minimum postgraduate of education level in clinical practice along with competencyin clinical knowledge and skills. Such nurses also possess the liberty to make autonomous decisions for the provision of treatment, diagnosis as well as assessment of patients (Jo et al. 2021). Moreover, such nurses must also have a job plan that demonstrates advanced nursing practice along with the equity of working with peers at this level. As per the Nursing and the Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) standard, it has been found that the advanced nurse practitioner must have completed at least 3 years of full-time advanced practice experience within the last 6 years by adhering to the rules and norms. An infection control nurse is a registered nurse who has been involved in the implementation of the best practices for halting the spread of the virus as well as bacteria thereby delivering top care to patients suffering from infectious disease (Page & Graves, 2021). This infection control assignment will highlight the role of an infection control nurse along with relevant literature and theoretical underpinnings, the challenges witnessed by the nurse along with the standards for practice within their workplace, and the registration requirements of infection control nurse practitioners.

Literature Review
According to the literature collected during this infection control assignment research it has been found that nurses and midwives constitute the largest clinical workforce in Australia. To be employed as a registered nurse in Australia, it is important to follow the professional nursing standards of the midwives and the nurses. The AHPRA works along with the effective coordination of the 12 national boards including the NMBA to protect the public through effective regulation of Australia’s registered health practitioners. Henderson et al. (2021) opined that infection control nurses play a vital role in the prevention of healthcare-associated infections in Australia. There has been a higher level of focus on the national infection control guidelines as well as the varied types of initiatives. In Australia, it has been found that there is greater reliance on infection control nurses to undertake the role of evaluation as well as the implementation of initiatives to reduce healthcare-associated infections including policies in a wider range of settings. As per the infection control assignment research, an infection control nurse in Australia is responsible for the surveillance of infectious diseases, documentation, infection control education, and observational audits in varied practice settings.

According to Page & Graves (2021), it has been found that an infection control nurse has been implementing the best practices to halt the spread of viruses and bacteria thereby delivering top-quality care to patients who have been suffering from infectious diseases. It is the responsibility of the nurse to make proper and effective use of protective equipment such as gloves, masks, gowns, hand hygiene, aseptic techniques as well as environmental infection control measures to protect the patient from the transmission of microorganisms from another patient or other health care worker. The infection control assignment findings also show an infection control nurse must also contribute to the governance of the anti-microbial stewardship program by participating in the anti-microbial stewardship committee. Grayson et al. (2018) opined that the patients shall be promoted to the current endorsed therapeutic guidelines on antimicrobial prevention by an infection control nurse in Australia. An infection control nurse practitioner needs to undertake the surveillance and thus provide the information to incorporate the feedback on the local infection pattern, the local pathogens, and the local antimicrobial prescribing patterns. An infection control nurse practitioner will work in effective coordination with the anti-microbial stewardship team for the incorporation of the effective infection control program, the pattern of local pathogens along with the local microbial prescribing pattern related to the outcome of the patient.

Rasmussen et al. (2022)) have stated that the nurse's and the midwife's compliance with infection control practices are likely to vary across different settings and individual workers. In this aspect, the subjective indicators include the visible dirt, the personal appearance as well as how the patient is to be identified as being infectious thereby affecting the decision-making process of the nurse practitionersassociated with standard precautions of handwashing. This reliance on personal judgment rather than the consistent application of the clinical standards for the prevention and control of infection is likely to lead to cross-contamination along with an increased rate of infection. The organizational structure, experience, personal accountability as well as individual knowledge is likely to affect compliance with the optimal infection control governance and practice. According to the infection control assignment research, it has been found that the positive effect of the nurses on infection control and practice prevention affects the clinical environment. FlorenceNightingales’ infection control theory stated that nurses must be careful in washing their hands frequently during the day (Ghafoor, 2021). The provision of a clean environment for the patient is vital to control an infection along with the prevention of the disease. This role in the change of the knowledge practice and the attitude in infection prevention plays an important aspect.

infection control assignment Critical appraisal
Standards of practice of an infection control nurse highlighting the skills of a nurse practitioner
As per the infection control assignment, the standards of practice of an infection control nurse involve the ability to put the knowledge into action in one way to define competence. Several core practices are related to the organizational infrastructure for the prevention of infection by the nurses such as leadership support, training and education about infection prevention, performance monitoring, and feedback as well as patient, family, and caregiver education (Courtenay et al. 2020). Further, the action-oriented core practices that are applied to the nurse practitioner include adhering to the standard precautions, transmission-based precautions, the use of the temporary invasive device as well as occupational health (Jo et al. 2021). It is the responsibility of the nurse to ensure that the person charged with the responsibility of an infection-prevention-specific education is to be provided with the support of the leaders for empowering them with the ability thereby ensuring the effectiveness of the program. An infection control nurse needs to apply the knowledge critically consistent with the specific practice issue thereby addressing both the expected and the unexpected aspects following the delivery of care. The nurse must also educate the patients to clean their hands and also enable the family members of the patients to assist the patients in carrying out this simple task that is likely to provide secondary benefits (Usher et al. 2018). infection control assignment research shows, there have been careful attempts made in the effective evaluation of the performance of an infection control nurse across varying levels. As the standards precautions can be considered as the foundational practice in the prevention of the movement of pathogens during the delivery of care, it is the responsibility of an infection control nurse to utilize the standard precautions thereby assuming that the patients might be colonized with an organism that might spread in the healthcare setting (Jo et al. 2021). The implementation of the varied standard precautions involves hand hygiene, environmental disinfection and cleaning, the assessment of risk along with the use of personal protective equipment, injection and medication safety, reprocessing of the reusable medical equipment as well as lowering the potential exposure. An infection control nurse must also be able to recognize the risk for cross-contamination. This indicates that the cleaning of hands must occur between the touches involving the patients as well as the care environment. An example that can be cited in this case involves the movement of the nurse from a contaminated or dirty patient care task to a clean patient care task involving the care environment (Desborough, et al. 2020). It is the responsibility of the nurse to respond accordingly thereby ensuring that the interaction with the patient is to be performed by someone whose hands do not carry organisms, the administered level of medication, the equipment used in the delivery of care as well as the environment surrounding them. The leadership ofan infection control nurse is also considered to be vital in recognizing the risk that is to be present in the clinical care environment along with the prompting of the resolution and rapid action (Cousins,2020). Examples of such instances involve the deviations involving the failure in the point of car equipment disinfection or cleaning. This indicates that the team members of an infection control nurse practitioner must be expansive including the provision of the engineering services such as the facilities management and the plant operation that is used in the clinical laboratory. The infection control assignment findings also show it is also important for an infection control nurse to keep an eye on the concept of one needle, one syringe, one time as well as one patient thereby focusing on the large-scale educational campaigns and alerts. There has to be a proper understanding of the conceptual basis that will highlight how the infectious organisms are transmitted during the preparation and administration of medication, sharp device use, and injection as well; as the outcomes that are likely to cause plague among the patients (Cousins,2020). An infection control nurse must possess expertise in identifying the care situation that poses risks such as appropriate medication compounded by others, the failure to utilize the protective equipment during the high-risk infection as well as infection control hacks that are likely to save time but deviate from the best practice. Further, the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) acts as the barrier between the patient and the nurse or the contaminated environment that is often addressed by the regulatory standards of NMBA (Cousins,2020). The use of the PPE assists in overcoming the contaminated environment witnessed by the nurses thereby spreading infection among the patients. It is also important to select and use the PPE as described by the higher authority along with additional actions such as the use of respiratory hygiene, hand hygiene, and cough etiquettes during the patient care interaction.

Registration requirement of an infection control nurse in Australia
With relation to qualitications, the infection control assignment investoigations revealed, to become a certified nurse, the nurse practitioner needs to score at least 7 in the International English language Testing System (IELTS). Moreover, the nurse must also score 65+ in the Pearson Test of English Academic or a total score of 88 in TOEFL (Ausszz, 2022). There should also bedemonstration of the NMBA standards along with the professional skills and knowledge that are to be kept updated by the meeting of the recency of practice registration. The nurse must also not have any criminal history or the pending chargesagainst her (Ausszz, 2022).

Challenges faced by an infection control nurse
An infection control nurse faces challenges in disposing of the needles that are used in the treatment of the patients. The nurses must try their best to segregate the waste into infections as well as non-infection wastes. There should be a proper eye kept on the non-mixing of the infectious and the non-infectious wastes thereby keeping an eye on the final disposal of wastes (Cousins,2020). On the other hand, infection control nurses also fail to collect the waste in covered bins, thereby keeping an eye that the bins are not overfilled. The wastes are to be secured in appropriate containers or bags. On the other hand, while disposing of the syringes, needles, and gloves, infection control nurses often face the challenge to dispose of them accordingly in the appropriate bins. The hospital authority must also keep an eye out that the garbage is never transported in open bags or containers as it is likely to increase the chance of infection. Further, as varied types of needles are used in medical treatment, waste management by a nurse is not done considering the disposal, auto disposable, or glass syringes. The infection control assignment investigation also shows, that nurses often fail to puncture the needles before disposing of them in sharp pits that are located in public health centers or hospitals. The syringes must not be disposed of in an open area and thus it is important to detach the plunger and the barrel before disinfecting the syringe. The nurses must always wear a protective glove in handling the syringes and the needles effectively. An infection control nurse must also keep an eye out that they do not reuse any syringe even by mistake and without proper sterilization. There should be single use of the needles at any cost (Page & Graves, 2021). On the other hand, there should be segregation of the infectious waste from the anatomical parts such as the placenta to avoid the spread of infection.Further, care should be taken that there is never any such disposal of the used plastics without any pre-treatment such as the mutilation and disinfection for carrying out the final disposal. There should also be no such reuse of disposable masks and gloves (Page & Graves, 2021).

The varied practice of infection control method must be practiced in such a way that it provides information to the patient to protect themselves from varied malpractices or infections. The infection control nurses also play an effective role in the surgical team round the clock fulfilling the varied basic preoperative and post-operative infection and care adhering to the recognized quality care measures in lowering the rate of infection (Ghafor, 2021). This is possible with the help of an effective level of education as well as the information that is necessary to provide continuous help to the patient for the effective level of empowerment of their rights.

Conclusion
Thus, infection control, as well as prevention practicesby the healthcare professional in tackling the patients reduces the germs by adhering to the standard precautions and practices. Further, with the help of frequent handwashing, the use of the PPE measures, good practices of disposing of the injection, respiratory care and hygiene along with the sharp safety equipment, the spread of infection can be controlled by the nurse. To avoid the transmission of infection, the infection control nurse must make effective utilization of the guidelines as per the NMBA guidelines. It has been found that the effective infection control nurse must also trust in the ability of the nurse to provide advice and motivate the other healthcare workers to adhere to the healthcare practices. The enhancement of the information related to safety and cleanliness isconsidered to be vital in the provision of nurse care. An infection control nurse must highlight the importance of infection control through print and the use of electronic media. Therefore the infection control assignment concludes, it is the responsibility of the infection control nurse to guide the patients related to waste management and infection control.

References
AHPRA. (2022). Nurses and midwives in Australia.infection control assignmentRetrieved 23 September 2021, fromhttps://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/nurses-and-midwives/in-australia Ausszz. (2022). Registered Nurse in Australia. Retrieved 23 September 2021, from https://www.aussizzgroup.com/india/nursing/registered-nurse
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