A Glimpse into the Safe Care Campaign to Prevent the Spread of Infection

Armando and Victoria Nahum formed the Safe Care Campaign after three members of their family, including their son, acquired infections during a hospital stay. Unfortunately, the Nahum's son died of his infection and Victoria has an incurable auto-immune disease.

This organization is the answer for a serious problem that one family faced in regards to hospital acquired infections. Armando and Victoria Nahum formed the Safe Care Campaign after three members of their family, including their son, acquired infections during a hospital stay. Unfortunately, the Nahum's son died of his infection and Victoria has an incurable auto-immune disease too.

The purpose of the Safe Care Campaign is to educate and promote hygiene safety as well as precautionary measures by all medical caregivers whether in a hospital setting, nursing home setting or other medical facilities. Not only does the Safe Care Campaign work with the medical institutions, they also work with patients as well so that they know what is safe and what practices to look for as well.

To understand more about what the Safe Care Campaign is working for, you have to understand more about hospital acquired infections. Often these infections are also called nosocomial infections which basically mean that the patient contracts an infection in the hospital when that patient was admitted for another reason entirely. Nosocomial infections also apply to those that incubate while in the hospital but then appear once discharged.

Most nosocomial infections aka HAIs are the result of some type of contact transmission. Direct transmission is body to body contact and could be as simple as a touch of the hand. Indirect contact occurs when contaminated medical instruments like syringes, needles, wound dressings or even gloves touch the susceptible patient. This often occurs when the medical caregiver does not change their gloves or immediately wash their hands before touching the patient.

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The most common way that germs are transmitted to the patient while in the hospital is through a breach in the body's defenses. This breach could occur as a simple paper cut on a finger to the eyes, nose, mouth, IV entry site, catheter site, feeding tubes and more. When an infection occurs through one of these sites, it can often be blamed on poor hygiene such as contaminated equipment and lack of hand washing.

These are the problems that the Safe Care Campaign is trying to combat through educating not only the patients entering medical facilities but also the medical community as well. Just as with all infection control measures, the best defense according to the Safe Care Campaign is thorough hand hygiene.

Proper hand hygiene involves washing the hands and wrists with warm water and soap. The soap should be lathered up for at least 30 seconds and thoroughly rinsed off. The hands should be dried via a paper towel or air drier. And if soap and water is not available, an alcohol-based hand sanitizer should be used by applying a dollop in one hand. You should rub the hands together, getting in between fingers, under fingernails and even up to the wrist until the sanitizer is dry. The Safe Care Campaign believes that if everyone who enters a hospital room washes their hands first before approaching the patient, more than half of the nosocomial aka hospital acquired infections could be prevented.

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