According to the National Health and Medical Research Council, there are over 200,000 cases of infections coming from healthcare facilities reported each year, which makes infections the most common complication affecting patients in healthcare facilities.
Your medical reception waiting area is filled with ill patients, especially during cold and flu season. However, not all infections are caused by airborne particles. Contact with contaminated bodily fluids such as blood or saliva can also lead to the spread of illnesses. Without effective infection control within your clinic, transmission of infections between patients and staff can easily occur.
If you are working in a medical environment, it is important that you have the skills to identify and manage situations where illnesses could be spread and taking action to mitigate the risks.
The best way to keep everyone in the clinic healthy is to have an effective Infection Control Plan in place to regularly sterilise the area and kill off any unwanted germs.
Taking a course that specialises in Infection Control will train you in the proper procedures to identify, isolate and manage these risks.
The Medical Administration Training Infection Control Course focuses on the top 3 areas of infection control.
1. Standard procedures for infection control
Effective infection control knowledge in a medical environment incorporates how to properly dispose of contaminated waste; the best way to clean and sterilise an area; and what hand hygiene and hand care procedures do you need to follow and when.
Many medical practitioners believe that many standard procedures (such as coughing etiquette) are common sense. However, researchers have found that in real-world situations, many of these protocols are not followed correctly. Our course teaches you correct infection control procedures and helps to correct any current methods that are being performed incorrectly. It also teaches you strategies to embed the protocols within your practice.
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2. How to identify and assess risks and hazards
Identifying and assessing risks and hazards within workplace tasks is crucial to the infection control process. If a possible infection isn’t identified or documented properly, it can lead to the spread of the infection.
This course teaches you what to look for when determining the likelihood of an infection spreading and to assess the potential severity of the spread. You will also learn how to determine the correct course of action and control measures ensure that the risk is minimised.
3. How to manage different situations involving infections
Different potential infections require different responses. Working within a medical facility, you need to know how to identify and respond to different situations. In some cases, adequate cleaning and sanitation is sufficient, in other cases you need to isolate potential infectious sources first, before implementing your infection control plan.
In most practices, there may be a need to create “zones” within the premises, with different isolation and cleaning regimes depending on whether the zone is clean or potentially contaminated, to reduce the risk of cross-contamination.
For example, if someone comes into the practice displaying signs of chicken pox, it is acceptable to isolate the patient away from the main waiting room, so as not to expose others in the clinic to the potential virus. Once the patient has been seen by the doctor, the isolation area can then be cleaned following the correct infection control procedures.
Other important situation management skills covered in the Infection Control Course include what to do if someone comes in contact with contaminated blood or bodily fluids, and how to minimise the contamination of supplies, materials, equipment and spaces by air borne infectious particles or splatter.
Keeping your knowledge of Infection Control procedures up to date is important and taking a course specialising in the management of Infection Control is a great way to refresh your knowledge.
If you are interested in applying for the Infection Control Course or are just looking for more information on what the course entails, visit the course page for more information.
