Infection Control
What you must understand
Standard precautions treat every resident's blood, body fluids, secretions, and non-intact skin as potentially infectious. Hand hygiene is the single most important practice: soap and water with friction for at least 20 seconds, covering all surfaces including between fingers and under nails, before and after resident contact, after removing gloves, and after touching contaminated items. Gloves do not replace handwashing.
Donning PPE: gown, mask, goggles, gloves. Removing: gloves, goggles, gown, mask, then hand hygiene; remove the dirtiest item first and pull gloves off inside out.
Transmission-based precautions: contact (gown and gloves; C. difficile requires soap and water, not alcohol rub, because alcohol does not kill spores), droplet (mask; influenza), airborne (fit-tested N95 and negative-pressure room; tuberculosis).
Other essentials: do not shake soiled linen; hold it away from your body; bag it at the point of use. Clean equipment between residents. Never recap a used needle; if stuck, wash, report immediately, and follow facility protocol.
Traps
'Alcohol gel is fine after C. diff' - wrong. 'I wore gloves, so I do not need to wash my hands' - wrong. 'Standard precautions only apply to residents with a known infection' - wrong.
Rule of thumb
If it is wet and it is not yours, treat it as infectious. Hand hygiene before and after every contact, gloves for every exposure.
Worked example
You are emptying a urinary catheter bag and a drop of urine lands on your glove. Gloves were on, so your hands are protected - but you still remove gloves and perform hand hygiene before touching anything else, because the glove surface is contaminated.