Universal Standard Precautions And It's Purpose

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Universal Standard Precautions

What Are Universal Precautions?

Universal precautions are the steps of guidelines launched to protect the healthcare workers from exposure to the deadliest infections such as hepatitis C, hepatitis B, and HIV that are transmitted by certain body fluids and blood of the infected patient.

Healthcare workers treat the patient on their best levels, but they might not be aware of the conditions of the patient immediately after meeting them. So, to protect the healthcare workers and the patient's health, the universal precautions states that all the patients should be literally considered to be infectious for bloodborne infections like hepatitis C, hepatitis B, HIV, and other bloodborne infection-causing agents while providing healthcare procedures.

Universal Precautions Guidelines:

The universal precautions guidelines include four major aspects:

• Components
• Engineering Controls
• Work Practice Controls
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Kits

1. Components:

According to universal Precautions, not all body fluids are capable of transmitting bloodborne diseases, but only certain fluids do. It also promotes the use of barriers to avoid unexpected exposure to blood. The types of barrier methods include the below three aspects.

2. Engineering Controls:

This includes a procedure for the disposal of hazardous materials from the workplace.

Sharp disposal containers, biological safety cabinets, etc. are the techniques of engineering controls.

3. Work Practice Controls:

Work practice controls are the techniques involved to reduce the risk of exposure to bloodborne infections by changing the procedures of work.

Proper handling and disposal of sharps, handwashing, and proper collection of waste, and transportation of fluids and tissue are the specialized techniques of workplace controls.

4. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Kits:

The PPE Kits include lab coats, gloves, gowns, glasses with slide shields, shoe covers, and masks. The aim of wearing PPE Kits is to prevent the body fluids and blood from contacting the worker's skin or mucus membrane to reduce the risk of developing deadly diseases.

Nowadays, PPE kits are in greater demand due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The use of PPE is mandatory to treat the covid patients. If one fails to wear the kit then they might get infected with the virus very easily. So, PPE kits are a must to perform major surgical processes.

The objective of universal precautions is to provide safety and priority to the healthcare workers as they are the frontline workers to treat the patients. The main aim of implementing universal precautions is to reduce the risk of transmission of infections from patients to healthcare workers.

What Do You Mean By Standard Precautions:

Standard precautions came into practice in 1996 issued by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA. The standard precautions were issued to overcome the drawbacks of universal precautions. The main drawback of universal precautions was that it provides protection only to the healthcare, but not the patient. Hence, the standard precautions came into practice to provide protection to the patients from the healthcare workers or from patients to other patients from the transmission of infections.

Unlike universal precautions which consider only patients as infectious, but standard precautions consider every person including healthcare workers and patients to be potential for infectious diseases.  

The standard precautions aim to prevent transmission of infections from:

• Hospital environment to the patient
• Hospital waste to a community spread
• Cross-transmission (Patient to patient)
• Patient to healthcare workers
• Healthcare workers to patient

The 8 Major Aspects Included In Standard Precautions:

1. Use Of Gloves:

Gloves prevents you from the contact of body fluids, secretion, blood, excretions, or contaminated items that increase the risk of Infections. The contaminated materials may be dressings or linen. 

Thus, gloves are very important while you are handling the patient or during the diagnosis process and help you to avoid the infections touching your mucus membrane and the skin.

2. Handling The Sharps:

Handling the sharps is the major component to be carefully disposed of in puncture-proof or leak-proof containers.

Never recap used needles as they may be contaminated and should not be reused and might cause injury to your hand.

3. Handling The Linen:

Linen also refers to the dressings of the patients or the healthcare workers used during the hospital procedures. Always remember that these dressing should be dealt with at the bedside area itself to reduce the contaminated cloth to spread infections.

Contaminated linen should be placed into a suitable waterproof bag for laundry to prevent leakages. Contaminated used sheets must be folded or rolled carefully prior to disposal to prevent dispersal of airborne infectious agents.

4. Hand Hygiene:

Hand Hygiene or hand washing is the basic task you need to practice in your daily life to prevent maximum infection risks. It is used to prevent the speeding of deadliest infections from patient to healthcare worker, patient to patient, or vise versa. There are seven movements of hand washing. Hand hygiene can be done by rubbing sanitizer or by washing the hands with soap and water. 

5 Situations Or Moments Where Hand Hygiene Is must:

• Before Patient Care.
• After Patient Care.
• After Contact Of Hospital Environment.
• After An Aseptic Task.
• After Exposure To Body Fluids Or Blood.

5. Use Of PPE Kits:

As we discussed above, PPE plays an important role during hospital procedures. It acts as a shield to protect you from the infection-causing agents. 

• One should wear aprons during direct contact with the patient, drawing blood, handling infected materials, dressings, or near the patient's bed.
• Wear gowns during surgical procedures in the operation theatre and during disposal of biomedical waste management.
• Wear masks when aerosols are released, during surgeries, and nowadays mask is mandatory to deal with the coronavirus. It helps to reduce the chances of pathogens entering into the body through the nose and oral route.
• Wear aprons or eye shield when contamination, splashing, or spills occurs.

6. Use Of Antiseptics And Disinfectants:

The hospital environment should be kept clean by using Disinfectants regularly.

• Hospital equipment including stethoscopes should be decontaminated after use on one patient, for further use on another patient.
• Always use antiseptic agents or stellium on your skin surfaces before performing any aseptic techniques.

7. Patient Isolation:

Isolation is a must for the patients identified as infected with rapidly spreading deadliest pathogens.

• Patients To Be Isolated:
• Corona (Covid-19)
• Chickenpox
• Measles
• Undiagnosed fevers and rashes
• Influenza
• Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
• Patients colonized with multiple drug-resistant bacteria like MRSA, VRE, etc
• Newly Suspected Open Pulmonary Tuberculosis

8. Biomedical Waste Management:

It involves a procedure for the disposal of hospital waste with special techniques and proper care to avoid the spread of infections. It involves four major steps and they are:

Segregation Of  Waste:

Segregation is a procedure that helps to dispose the biomedical waste into appropriate color-coded bags based on the type of waste. Thus, provide a better mode of disposal or treating a waste harmless.

Temporary Storage Of Waste:

After segregation is done, the waste is temporarily stored in a specialized room until the transport mode is available.

Transport Of Waste:

The hospital waste should be transported for final disposal in leak-proof containers to avoid the spread of infections to the community where it travels.

Proper Disposal Of Waste:

The final step of biomedical waste management is the disposal of waste in a proper place and far from the habitat place due prevent the unwanted spread of infections to the visitors.

What Are Transmission-Based Precautions:

The precautions followed in the hospital when the patient admitted are known to be colonized or infected with highly transmissible pathogens. Thus, there are higher chances of spreading such pathogens to the healthcare worker and other patients in the hospital. So, along with the standard precautions, transmission-based precautions are brought into practice. 

This includes four categories through which certain precautions are followed:

1. Droplet Precautions:

The droplet released from the patient consists of millions of pathogens that might spread the infections easily. The droplet nuclei size might be more than 5-micron meters which can easily pass up to 4-5 meters. The examples of pathogens in the droplets are diphtheria, meningococcal meningitis, respiratory syncytial virus, etc.

The precautions to be taken against droplets:

• Mask is a must for healthcare workers and others
• The patient should be provided with a separate room
• The patient should be restricted from moving from one place to other
• In necessary conditions, the patient must wear a mask while moving or leaving the room

2. Appropriate And Strict Isolation:

Nowadays people know the importance of isolation after the outbreak of coronavirus. Isolation should be followed strictly if the patient is infected with a highly transmissible agent. Isolation helps to reduce the risk of the spread of infections to the community. The pathogens that cause isolation of the patients include coronavirus, hemorrhagic fever, vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, etc.

The precautions to be followed:

• The patient should be provided with a separate room
• Disinfection of dressings regularly
• PPE kits should be used by the individuals entering the room
• Hand hygiene should be available 
• Single-use equipment should be used
• Unnecessary visiting to the isolated room should be restricted

3. Airborne Precautions:

In the airborne type, the pathogens might spread for a certain distance through ait medium and the size of droplet nuclei might be less than 5-micron meter and thus having a small size it passes through the air medium easily. The pathogen spreading through the air are measles, chickenpox, tuberculosis, etc.

The precautions for airborne infections are:

• Again in this condition, the patients should be provided with individual room
• The patient should restrict his movements within the room
• The room should have adequate ventilation
• A highly efficient mask should be used by healthcare workers

4. Contact Precautions:

You might have understood by the name itself, the infections are easily transferred by touching or contacting the contaminated surface. The patient might transmit the pathogens through direct or indirect contact. Indirect contact refers to touching the surfaces that are contaminated whereas direct contact is possible when you touch the infected patient. The effects of transmitted pathogens through contact are diarrhea, corona, enteric fever, skin lesions, etc.

The precautions to avoid infections through contact:

• Wearing gloves while treating the patient
• Following hand hygiene techniques
• Restrict patient movements outside the room
• Restrict the patient from touching the hospital surface or equipment
• Patient surrounding and equipment should be cleaned, sterilized, and disinfected regularly

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