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Infection Control from the Hospital Room to your Home

In a perfect world, we would live in a sterile environment and not ever have to worry about germs or developing infections. However, nothing is perfect and the world is full of microbes such as bacteria and viruses whose sole purpose of existence is to find the perfect host and multiply.

Germs are everywhere, even in the cleanliest of environments like hospitals. That is why infection control is so important when you are a patient there. You wouldn't want to get a secondary infection aka nosocomial or hospital acquired infection. Germs are just one of things that we will always have to put up with because they live everywhere like telephone receivers, shopping carts, door knobs and even your kitchen counter.

How Infections Spread

In order to understand how to practice infection control from the hospital to your home, you have to understand how germs are spread. The common way is by touching infected items or even another human. And if hands have not been washed, it is a safe bet that germs would be living on them.

Some germs are spread through sneezing or coughing. Typically through respiratory droplets, you could touch an object that was sneezed or coughed on or even just being nearby, breathing in the infected droplets could cause an infection.

Prevention of Germ Spreading

Wash hands! The bottom line is that proper hand washing can alleviate a lot of health issues. You should lather up with regular soap, rinse with warm water and then dry with a disposable paper towel. Alcohol based hand sanitizers work in a pinch. In addition, you should make darned sure that your health care provider dons gloves, a gown and mask when conducting an examination of you.

As a patient, there are a few things you can do to stop germ spreading from the hospital to the home. You too can wash your hands as often as you are able to, using soap and lathering up properly. Always after bathroom breaks and before eating you should wash hands. Be sure that your bed linens have been laundered properly, washed in hot enough water to kill germs.

Whether you have a catheter, IV or wound, always keep an eye on them so that you can identify possible infection. The site may become red and inflamed which could require antibiotics if it is a bacterial problem. In addition, tell family and friends to stay away if they are sick, even it is a simple cold.

At home, you can practice similar techniques to keep infection at bay such as the hand washing and limiting visiting guests. In addition, do not share eating utensils, towels, glasses or personal grooming products. Clean food preparation areas particularly after handling raw meat and unwashed vegetables and fruits that could harbor E. coli or salmonella. Of course the ultimate show stopper when it comes to infection control has got to be immunizations from infants to adults. Most of the vaccinations will protect you for years, but they are not infallible. Sometimes, as an adult, you have to get them all over again, particularly tetanus, hepatitis and rubella.