Duct tape effective at preventing infection
Medical Staff Leader Connection, June 30, 2011
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Medical Staff Leader Connection!
Staff at hospitals that choose active surveillance and patient isolation to prevent bug transmission must endure the hassle of gowning and gloving for each patient encounter. Important communication with the patient sometimes loses to more pressing healthcare needs. Members of the infection team at Trinity Regional Health System, a four-hospital network with 504 beds on the Illinois/Iowa border, say they've found a solution that is amazingly low tech: Duct tape.
They call the solution the "Red Box" safe zone, a three-foot square area of space from the threshold of the patient's room, marked off with red duct tape purchased at a local hardware store.
Now when an isolated patient has a simple request, such as a glass of water, or needs to go to the restroom, staff can stand within that box to communicate to the patient in the room without having to don gowns and gloves. "It lessened barriers to communicating," said Janet Nau Franck, infection prevention consultant at Trinity and author of the report.
Read more from HealthLeadersMedia.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Medical Staff Leader Connection!
Related Products
-
The Medical Executive Committee Handbook, Third Edition
Updated to reflect the new 2007 Joint Commission standards, this best-selling resource offers practical tools and strategies...
-
Medical Staff Leaders' Practical Guide, Sixth Edition
Written by experienced medical staff leaders currently working in hospitals, The Medical Staff Leaders' Practical Guide...
-
Assessing the Competency of Low-Volume Practitioners:
The Joint Commission requires that hospitals verify physician competence using performance data. Yet organizations often...
-
The Final Verdict on MS.01.01.01:
The Joint Commission has finalized and communicated the changes to MS.01.01.01. This program will not restate what you...
-
Medical Staff Briefing
This monthly resource acts as a support system by providing time-saving tools, expert advice, and analyses to help you...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- News and briefs: Oklahoma Osteopathic Association against residency bill change
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- E-mailed
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- New conflicts of interest create new challenges
- Q&A tackles coding questions about injections and infusions
- Joint Commission Center announces handoff communication solutions
- Inside best practice: Reduce patient falls with a stoplight
- Identify modifiable risk factors to prevent patient falls
- Hospitalist-surgeon comanagement has no effect on outcomes
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- Case Management Monthly, June 2012
- Searched