Physiotherapy Practice Guidelines For Preventing And Controlling Infection

Physiotherapy Practice Guidelines For Preventing And Controlling Infection Effective infection control and prevention is essential for service delivery in physical therapy Highland. Physiotherapists should be knowledgeable about the principles of infection control and implement the necessary and appropriate measures in their practice. Physiotherapists should remain aware of appropriate, current and accepted infection control measures that are consistent with the standards of physiotherapy practice, employer-specific policies, applicable legislation and procedures to support safety and health of patients, health-care providers and other stakeholders.

What is infection control and prevention?

Effective infection control and prevention are characterized by evidence-based procedures and practices when applied consistently in physiotherapy or other health care settings can reduce or prevent the risk of transmission of disease-causing micro-organisms to patients, health-care providers and others. These procedures and practices are sometimes referred to as measures and can be classified as contact, routine, airborne precautions and droplet. The necessary measures are put into practice after assessing the patient population and the facility and are instituted based on the infectious agents in questions and how the agents are transmitted. Infection control and prevention measures target the mode of transmission through the use of PPEs, hand hygiene, environmental cleaning and can also target the susceptibility of potential hosts by immunization.

Care risk assessment and hand hygiene Hand hygiene is recognized as the most important infection control and prevention practice and helps to break the transmission chain by acting on one of the modes by which infectious agents are typically spread. Hand hygiene using sanitizers that are alcohol-based or handwashing using water and soap is an essential element of all infection prevention and control efforts in a physical therapy clinic. However, some estimates have shown that compliance with hand hygiene practices is as low as forty percent among health workers.

Physical therapists are expected to practice proper hand hygiene according to any diseasespecific recommendations and practice setting and consistent with WHO’s guidelines.

Health professionals should wash their hands before touching a patient, after body fluid exposure, before aseptic procedures, after touching a patient and after touching the surroundings of a patient. It is also important to conduct a point of care risk assessment prior to each contact with a patient to determine the degree of risk of transmission or infection of communicable diseases to the staff, patients, colleagues and others. When conducting a risk assessment, it is important to include consideration of the likelihood of exposure to agents from a specific interaction, with a specific patient, in a specific environment or under available conditions.

Environmental cleaning Some measures help to prevent the spread of diseases by disrupting the transmission mode. Physiotherapists also have a role to play when it comes to breaking the chain of transmission by getting rid of reservoirs of infectious agents. All this can be accomplished through environmental cleaning.

Physiotherapists in a physical therapy Highland clinic may not be expected to clean their facility but they have the responsibility of ensuring the practice environment is well equipped, maintained and operated in a manner that is consistent with the infection control and prevention guidelines.