Tackling infection prevention with your long-term-care customers begins with education and awareness.
Containing the spread of infection continues to be one of the greatest challenges your long-term-care customers face. An outbreak of respiratory or healthcare-acquired illness can lead to the hospitalization of elderly, often immuno-compromised, residents – a costly and life-threatening outcome for everyone involved.
Between 1.6 million and 3.8 million infections occur each year in U.S. long-term-care facilities, according to Clorox Healthcare. Shorter hospital stays intended to reduce costs mean more patients are discharged more quickly to long-term-care facilities, and often back to the hospital. This and the fact that residents live in close quarters and interact daily with clinical staff make it easier for highly contagious germs, such as influenza, norovirus, C. diff and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), to spread. Norovirus outbreaks in particular (a fast-spreading virus that causes inflammation of the stomach and/or intestines) have been associated with increases in all-cause hospitalization and mortality in nursing homes, according to research published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Add to this the challenge of maintaining a residence that appears clean and is odor free, and long-term-care administrators, indeed, are in need of their distributor sales reps’ support. For instance, a recent survey by Clorox of U.S. adults with family or friends in long-term-care settings suggests that cleanliness most definitely is on the minds of consumers. The survey found:
- 71 percent of survey participants cited overall cleanliness as a top factor influencing their decision in selecting a long-term-care facility for a friend or family member.
- 49 percent expressed concern over soft-surface cleanliness.
- 44 percent said odor influenced their selection of a long-term-care facility.
- 79 percent expressed concern about the risk of infection.
Helping long-term-care customers get on track with infection prevention begins with increasing their awareness of the situation at hand. It’s not that long-term-care administrators and caregivers don’t care about infection control, but sometimes they are less aware of the importance of certain best practices, such as hand hygiene, than one might assume. And, it’s easy for busy staff workers to forget to wash their hands as frequently as they know they should.
Experts agree, proper hand hygiene is key to reducing the spread of infection in long-term-care settings. Hands should be washed before and after any patient or resident contact, as well as after cleaning and removing one’s gloves, and effective hand washing techniques should be used every time. In addition, long-term-care staff should also educate residents and visitors on proper hand hygiene procedures.
Together with hand hygiene, caregivers should ensure that all surfaces in the patient environment are cleaned beyond the point of aesthetic cleanliness. Not only should caregivers remove visible soil from countertops and medical equipment, but it is imperative they use antimicrobial products designed to kill 99.99 percent of infection-causing pathogens common in healthcare settings. Nor are hard surfaces the only potential sources of contamination in long-term-care facilities. Pathogenic bacteria can also exist on privacy curtains, upholstered furniture, bed linens and even employee uniforms. As products become available to address soft surface contamination, distributor sales reps have an opportunity to offer customers some viable solutions.
Sanitization and cleaning practices play a critical role in improving a facility’s image, and help it prepare for state inspections and the burden of re-hospitalization rates anticipated by the Affordable Care Act.
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The impact of norovirus in LTC facilities
Norovirus is a highly contagious disease that spreads through person-to-person contact, contaminated food or water, and contaminated surfaces, objects and substances. The virus can persist on environmental surfaces for weeks, according to Clorox Healthcare. Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, stomach pain, fever, headaches and body aches.
Each year, norovirus cases reportedly lead to 800 deaths and 71,000 hospitalizations, says Clorox. For hospital patients who are immuno-compromised or have significant co-morbidities, the infection can result in additional medical complications and prolonged hospital stays. In the United States, 90 percent of norovirus-associated deaths occur in individuals 65 years and older.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that foodborne norovirus illness accounts for $2 billion in lost productivity and healthcare costs in the United States each year. The financial burden of a norovirus outbreak on a long-term-care facility is more than $65,000, according to Clorox, which notes that this cost can be substantially reduced through surface disinfection and hand hygiene. For example:
- Increasing surface disinfection to help contain the spread of viruses following the detection of a single case of norovirus has been found to offset costs by as much as $40,040.
- When five cases of norovirus were detected, cost reduction reportedly increased to $99,363.
- Increasing hand hygiene procedures following the detection of a single case of norovirus has been found to offset costs by as much as $21,394.
- Increasing hand hygiene following the detection of five norovirus cases has been found to reduce costs by as much as $104,273.
Source: Clorox Healthcare, Influenza and Norovirus Prevention Toolkit.
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