Infection Control and Safety Standards
Infection control rules translate standard precautions into enforceable duties. Standard precautions treat all blood and saliva as potentially infectious regardless of a patient's known status, so a question that asks whether precautions may be relaxed for a patient who "looks healthy" or discloses a negative test is testing whether you know precautions are status-blind. Know hand hygiene indications, personal protective equipment selection and doffing order, and the rules for gloves (single use, not washed, changed between patients and when torn).
Understand sterilization and disinfection: instruments that penetrate tissue or contact bone are critical items and must be sterilized; semicritical items contact mucous membranes and require high-level disinfection at minimum; noncritical surfaces require low-level disinfection. Know that sterilization monitoring includes biological indicators, and that spore testing failures trigger recall and retesting of loads. Be able to describe surface barriers, waterline management, and the handling of sharps and regulated waste.
Safety topics include the bloodborne pathogens exposure control plan, hepatitis B vaccination offers, post-exposure evaluation and prophylaxis, and reporting obligations. Questions often test whether a device was classified correctly, whether an item was single-use, or whether a post-exposure protocol was followed.
Traps: assuming a negative test result permits reduced precautions; washing gloves; and treating an item that contacted intact skin as critical.
Rule of thumb: classify by what the item touches - bone or bloodstream = sterilize; mucous membrane = high-level disinfection; intact skin or surface = disinfect.