Standard Precautions and Surgical Asepsis (Nursing)

00:01 Hi! I’m Joanna Jackson, and in this lesson, we’ll review standard precautions in transmission-based precautions. A quick overview of what we’ll review today. Assessment of client care areas, principles of communicable diseases, principles of infection control, and tips to remember this content. Always remember to assess the patient care areas. There are hundreds of living organisms and body fluids that can cause disease, reduce the risk whenever it’s possible. Ensure patient care areas are clean and void of infection-causing organisms.

00:38 Ensure hazardous material containers are emptied as needed. Empty bedside commodes and urinals as needed. And discard food trays as soon as it’s possible. Standard precautions are infection control techniques and practices employed to prevent and reduce the transmission of diseases. Basic precautions should be used at all times with all patients, regardless if you know that they have a disease or an infection. Additional precautions such as barriers should be used when a specific disease is identified, known or suspected. The basic ideas of standard precaution include hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, safe disposal of sharps, correct reprocessing of instruments, respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette, aseptic technique which means non-touch, and disposal of waste and linens properly.

01:41 Standard precautions are infection control techniques. The first one and most commonly known is hand washing. Now, let’s review proper hand washing procedure. Use warm water.

01:52 Hot water can dry your skin. Vigorously rub all areas of your hand, including the back of your hands and your nail beds and your wrists for 20 to 60 seconds. Rinse with warm water by letting the water run down from the wrist to your fingers, with your hands in the sink like this. Do not touch the faucet. Turn it off with a clean dry paper towel when you’re finished. Next, we’ll review Personal Protective Equipment, also known as PPE.

02:26 Personal Protective Equipment includes gloves, masks, goggles, face shields, and gowns. The most common PPE used is gloves. Use gloves when in contact with any bodily fluids. Use for general client care. Wash hands before and after you use gloves. Change in between each patient and when soiled, torn or punctured. Wear during cleaning to protect yourself from strong or hazardous chemicals. And use proper procedure to remove, to avoid yourself from accidentally coming in contact with any fluids on the gloves. Masks are also frequently used PPE. Masks should be firmly fitted to cover your nose and your mouth. Change masks frequently.

03:17 Remove by using the elastic strings and do not reuse masks. The sequence for putting on PPE is really important to avoid contact with fluids. Hand hygiene is first, then a gown, then masks, then goggles or any protective eyewear, followed by your gloves. Taking off your PPE is as equally important. Start by removing your gloves. Perform hand hygiene.

03:46 Then remove goggles or any protective eyewear. Then proceed to remove your gown, your mask, and perform hand hygiene again. Another really important concept of standard precautions includes the proper disposal of any sharp item. These items can penetrate skin and should be disposed of or removed properly. Do not recap needles, use containers labelled sharp and ensure the disposal containers are emptied frequently or as needed. Now, we will review additional precautions. These are used in addition to standard precautions.

04:23 Standard precautions should be used at all times. One additional precaution includes droplet precautions.

04:30 Droplets are generated primarily through coughing, sneezing, or even talking. Transmission via large-particle droplets requires close contact between the source and recipient.

04:43 Droplets generally travel only a short distance, usually no more than three feet. If you have a patient on droplet precautions, make sure when possible to remain three feet away from them or use a mask. Droplets do not remain suspended in the air. So, special ventilation is not required to prevent droplet transmission. When possible, the patient should have a private room, and use a mask if performing any care requiring you to be closer in three feet. Next is contact precaution. Direct contact transmission involves skin to skin contact and physical transfer of microorganisms. This frequently occurs during activities that require physical contact.

05:25 Direct contact transmission can also occur from a contaminated inanimate object.

05:30 Use gloves, gowns, frequent hand hygiene, avoid sharing equipment, and clean according to the protocol between use. Airborne precautions. These are used to protect against the transmission of infectious agents. Preventing airborne transmission focuses on personal, respiratory protection, and special ventilation. And examples include chickenpox, measles, tuberculosis.

05:59 Use of special rooms such as negative pressure rooms or positive pressure rooms to limit the spread of illness. Quick ways to remember this content: say information out loud, practice talking to friends or in the mirror as if you were the nurse talking to a patient, make up funny or quirky acronyms about medications or processes that will help you remember them.

06:22 For example, the nursing process can be remembered as ADPIE- assess, diagnose, plan, implement, and then evaluate.

06:31 Visualize this. In the example ADPIE, visualize an apple pie with the letters AD on it. Then the NCLEX will be as easy as eating pie. When in doubt, assess, diagnose, plan, and then implement. Always assess before taking any action at all.

06:51 If two answers feel correct, do your best to pick the best answer. And opposites attract.

06:57 If two answers are complete opposites, one is usually the correct answer.