Infection Control
What you must know
Every infection needs six links: a germ, a reservoir, a portal of exit, a mode of transmission, a portal of entry, and a susceptible host. Your hands are the most common mode of transmission, so hand hygiene is the single most important thing you do. Use alcohol-based rub for routine decontamination; use soap and water when hands are visibly soiled and when caring for a resident with C. difficile or norovirus, because alcohol does not kill those spores.
Standard precautions apply to every resident regardless of diagnosis: hand hygiene, gloves when contact with blood, body fluids, mucous membranes, or non-intact skin is likely, gown, mask, and eye protection when splashes are possible. Gloves never replace handwashing - clean hands before donning and after removing them. Do not share razors, nail clippers, or toothbrushes.
Transmission-based precautions: contact (MRSA, C. diff, scabies) - gown and gloves, dedicated equipment; droplet (influenza, pertussis, mumps) - mask; airborne (tuberculosis, measles, varicella) - fitted N95 and a negative-pressure room. Follow the posted sign and never change the precaution level on your own.
General order of donning: gown, mask, goggles, gloves. Doffing: gloves, goggles, gown, mask, then hand hygiene. Carry soiled linen away from your body and bag it at the point of use; never place supplies on the floor or on the overbed table after they have touched the floor.
Traps
"Gloves are enough"; wearing the same gloves for two residents; putting clean linens on the floor; removing your mask first.
Worked example: A resident has watery diarrhea and a C. diff history. Wear gown and gloves, use soap and water for hand hygiene, use dedicated equipment, and clean high-touch surfaces with the facility's sporicidal product.