A Guide for the Healthcare Providers to Deal with Communicable Diseases

The count of communicable diseases that are plaguing the Indian population is increasing rapidly. This includes the diseases which were believed to be eliminated previously like cholera, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, dengue, West Nile virus, H1N1, and Nipah. This means that the number of patients that hospitals will be attending to would be increased. The reasons behind this situation are unsanitary conditions around the habitat of majority Indians, a weak immune system, and lack of nourishment in the general public.

The rate of infections is intensified with cases of hospital-acquired  infections, which is particularly high in India in relation to developed nations. The rate is alarming at one infection per four hospital visits. Usually, patients are often infected with multi-drug resistant strains of pathogens from hospitals, whose treatment is far more challenging than ordinary pathogens.

Hospital-acquired  infections can only be reduced with strict adherence to norms and protocols, and intensive training programmes for health care professionals, like infection control nurse courses. Having said that, here are some basic procedures to be observed while caring for patients with infectious diseases in hospitals:

1. Include cautious measures by using gloves, masks, eyewear, gowns, etc. especially in the circumstances involving contact with blood, bleeding lesions, tissue fluid, vaginal fluid, semen, etc.
2. Wash contaminated skin as soon as possible, and hands should also be washed after removal of gloves, before attending the next patient.
3. Puncture injuries should be avoided.
4. Mouth protection should be used during mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
5. New or sterilised equipment should be used.
6. Hospitals should be kept free of mosquitoes, pests and other vectors.
7. Patients should be taken out of their rooms only if absolutely necessary.
8. Pregnant health care workers should be doubly cautious and observant of all the disease-specific protocols.

Along with infection control nurse courses, healthcare providers should also attend courses that impart communication skills for healthcare professionals. The consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations (CAHO), is one such recognised non-profit organisation that strongly believes in continuously promoting, improving, and sharing the best healthcare practices across platforms. CAHO hosts various healthcare training programmes like fire safety training for hospital staff, training to deal communicable diseases, communication skills for the healthcare professional, cybersecurity training and others for the hospital staff and much more. You can visit their website to know more!

 

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Tips to Enhance Communication Skills of Healthcare Professionals

Being a healthcare professional is not just about curing patients’ ailments. It also involves being compassionate and ensuring smooth communication with them. The modern-day healthcare sector needs to be transparent in all its functionalities and in ways of treating and interacting with patients. 

The standard of care demanded by patients requires you to effectively communicate with them as well as other members of the healthcare team. 

In simpler words,  soft skills like understanding the patient while you encounter them in the waiting room, the examination room, on the telephone, or through email. You should also know how to work efficiently and productively as a member of the healthcare team to ensure the highest level of effectiveness in serving the patients’ needs.  

Various regulatory bodies like the Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations recognise the importance of possessing soft skills by healthcare professionals. They conduct various training sessions and workshops to enhance the communication skills for healthcare professionals. Apart from this, other coaching sessions like nurse training programmes, patient care training programme, and fire safety training for hospital staff. If you are a healthcare professional and looking to hone your communication skills then here are some tips for you, have a look! 

Incorporate active listening:

Allow your patients to share their thoughts and feelings as this will provide you with valuable information regarding their lifestyles and other medical histories while making them comfortable. Watch out for your body language while listening to them as non-verbal communication plays a major role in the patient-provider relationship. 

Maintain eye contact:

Maintaining eye contact, nodding appropriately, and empathizing with your patients or their relatives are signs of active interaction. On the other hand, looking around, looking at your watch, making faces or noises are signs that you are not listening and are disinterested in what your patients have to say.

Be accountable:

In case your communication goes wrong, take the responsibility and make sure that you don’t blame your patient even if you feel that you are right. Try to discuss the issue politely and learn to be responsible for your mistakes. The whole idea behind this is to make you analyse your mistakes and eventually learn from them, improving your work in the long-run.

Honesty is the best policy:

Patients always rely on healthcare providers for knowing everything regarding their treatment, diseases and other related information. Be honest while conveying the same. Make sure that you do not hide any data from your patients.

The highest reasons for complaints from the patients is poor communication amid them and healthcare providers. Hence, the need for enhancing communication skills for the healthcare professional is highly important. By using the aforementioned tips, you will be able to master soft skills in no time.

 

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Significance of Training Programmes in Hospitals

Despite being an indispensable part of the economy and society, hospitals are constantly striving hard to match up with the new-age and advanced technology (introduced to offer ease and precise results). For this reason, the healthcare professionals are provided with relevant technical training to improve their skill sets, upgrade their knowledge, perform tasks in a better way, be aware of their future roles and responsibilities. However, apart from enhancing the skill set and knowledge, developing additional abilities like communication skills, interpersonal skills, decision-making skills, etc. should also be ensured for smooth functioning in any healthcare organisation. 

The hospital or nursing training programmes strengthen the employees’ skills and help them improve in the areas they lack in. An effective training programme is the one that spots individual areas of improvement to address them properly. Here are the other important factors that should be integrated into proper implementation of hospital training programmes. 

1. Include programmes for different styles: Training programmes should be weaved in such a way that they fuse diverse learning styles like verbal, visual, etc. While the trainers should use different teaching methods, the trainees should also give their inputs about their preferred learning ways. Furthermore, make sure that you convey information in the language that’s common for all, so that the entire staff can understand properly.

2. Incorporate ‘Learn by Fun’: Try conducting group work, quizzes and other activities to make training sessions more interesting and interactive. Through this, the professionals will not only gain expertise but will also enjoy which will, in turn, hone their interpersonal skills. 

3. Ensure computer-based training schedules: While it’s better to conduct face-to-face training, yet certain sessions can be completed online. Computer-based training is usually convenient for individuals from various locations and schedules. Nonetheless, be prepared for potential technical difficulties. 

4. Take care of the individual’s convenience: Since the healthcare staff has multiple responsibilities, the training schedule should be designed while keeping the same in mind. Flexible timings and convenient locations should be considered while designing the module. 

A well-structured and planned training session offers a stronger understanding of the industry to the staff. It enhances the staff members’ performance while building their confidence. Various bodies like the Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations(CAHO) are working towards constantly promoting and improving the quality of the healthcare services, nationwide. And hence, they provide various nursing training programmes to hone the skills of the individuals, in turn, enabling them to rise high in their career.

 

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What it is to be an Infection Control Nurse?

One of the significant problems the healthcare providers face is that of infections, also known as nosocomial infections, prevailing in the healthcare setting. Though all the medical professionals are trained to take precautions, yet the possibility of the infections can not be completely eliminated. This has induced the need to introduce a separate course of instruction like Infection Control Nurse Course to prevent the occurrence of dangerous outbreaks in hospitals. While all the nurses are trained to stop the infectious diseases to spread, the nurses who specifically enroll for infection control nurses are coached to avert the spread of infectious agents like virus and bacteria.

After taking up the Infection Control Course, nurses will be able to perform the following tasks:

lAnalysing, recognising and then educating about the causes and impacts of infectious diseases while serving

as an infection control consultant for the healthcare setting and entire community.

lCreating strategies, action-plans on how to prevent infectious ailments to affect the patients and their

attendants, while ensuring smooth implementation of infection control practices according to the set

standards.

lIn case of confirmation of any infectious disease, gathering necessary resources that will help in its cure.

lGuiding the family members of the patients infected with HIV, AIDS, TB, nosocomial infections etc. on

precautions and steps to be taken for the patient’s as well as their health.

lActing as a coordinator or leader of an Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Programme.

lEnsuring smooth implementation of infection control practices according to the set standards.

Eligibilty :

Following are the prerequisites for a Nurse aspiring to obtain certification in Infection Control Course:

lHaving license and registration as a nurse or nurse practitioner

lCurrently working in a medical setting

lKeeping infection control and prevention in the priority list of responsibilities

lMedical experience should include active participation in investigation and surveillance of suspected outbreaks

lCollecting, analysing and interpreting infection outcome data.

As per the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, around 1 in 20 patients are likely to be affected with nosocomial infections. For this reason, various healthcare organisations are also endevaouring to maintain the safety and care standards for the patients as well as the healthcare providers. Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Professionals (CAHO), is one such recognised not-for-profit organisation that strongly believes in continuously promoting, improving and sharing best healthcare practices across platforms. Apart from infection control nurse course, CAHO hosts various healthcare training programmes like fire safety training for hospital staff, basic nursing communication training, cyber security training and others for the hospital staff and much more. You can visit their website to know more!

 

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