Preventative Measures in Place in New York for Staph Super Bug

Recently I spoke with Janet Andrus who is the infection control nurse at Tioga Nursing Facility in Waverly New York, about this new super bug. Janet assures me that control measures are in effect to control this type of staph infection within the nursing home population.

When infections such as this staph super bug infection are controlled within the nursing home setting, it is less likely to spread to the health care workers who take care of the patients within the facility, and those health care workers are less likely to take it outside the facility and infect others within the general population.

The first defense is proper hand washing techniques to keep the infection from spreading to new patients. The facility has plenty of anti bacteria soap in every washroom, and on every hall of every unit, there are also multiple cans of waterless anti bacteria foam soap.

Staff members are instructed gloves all the time during patient care; it is something the health care workers do instinctively. This control measure is a standard in healthcare and was in place before the emergence of this new staph infection the super bug.

The second line of defense is the proper use of gowning up methods when dealing with a patient who is infected. The proper gowning up methods includes gloves, gowns, face, and hair and sometimes shoe covering.

The third line of defense is to keep all medical equipment that comes into an infected patient in their room for the duration of their stay. This equipment includes but is certainly not limited too blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, oxygen-measuring devices, and tape for bandage application This also includes laundry containers in the rooms by the doors so the clothes of an infection patient is not mixed in with other patients clothes.

Each infected patient is given a private room or is placed with a patient who has this staph infection. These patients stay in their rooms, out of the general populous, but when a health care worker goes in, the worker must gown up twice in order to care for each patient. This also helps to prevent the spread of infection to non-infected patients.

It is her job as the infection control nurse to stay up on the latest data about everything of an infection control issue. It is also her job to educate the nursing staff on proper infection control measures.

This staph infection also called the super bug got her attention, because it is loose on society in many areas. The staph super bug is growing and increasing so fast, and by some reports, it may cause more deaths the HIV currently does with the United States borders. This is a staph infection that can get bad very quick, and once you get it if it is not treated quickly, it can be fatal. It is treated with the intravenous medication vancomycin, which is usually given over the course of 30 or 45 days. It is that serious of a health threat.

Janet Andrus works hard to keep her self and the staff of the 200-bed facility up to date on the local infectious control issues, which could threaten the lives of the patients those staff members, take care of.

Although Janet Andrus works for the Tioga Nursing facility, it is small part of the Guthrie Healthcare Systems. Guthrie Healthcare systems are taking the matter of this superbug infection very seriously and instructing all the infection control nurses at it affiliate clinics, nursing homes and hospital on infection control techniques of this specific infection. There is much educational information that is posted with the buildings under the Guthrie Healthcare systems and instructions on preventing this is verbally given to each patient who is admitted to any of the facilities within that system.