Journal Article

Infection Control Bundles for the Prevention of Hospital Infections

TÜRE YÜCE, Zeynep, ALP, Emine

2018

Overview

The incidence of hospital-acquired infections increases due to the rising use of invasive procedures and increased length of hospital stay. The incidence of colonization and infection with multidrug-resistant microorganisms also increased along with the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Besides, due to limited antibiotic treatment options, infection control measures are of great importance. Using prevention bundles including three or five infection control measures according to the characteristics of the units rather than single measures is more effective. The most frequently applied infection control bundles aim at preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia, central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, surgical site infections, and spread of resistant Gram-negative microorganisms. It is critically important that the bundle parameters are applied and controlled for 24 hours and seven days. The basic principles of all bundles include avoiding use of unnecessary invasive applications, compliance with the rules of aseptic and antiseptic procedures during the daily medical practice, discontinuation of invasive devices as soon as they are no longer required and compliance with hand hygiene. Implementation of evidence-based infection control bundles, provides an important opportunity for the delivery of safe and regular healthcare services. After the bundle applications, the task of the infection control committee is to carry out surveillance programs for compliance with the bundle parameters and to determine the rate of infections, and give feedback. By means of the feedback, compliance with the bundles and decreased infection rates are observed. In this paper, we present a review of the literature on the bundle parameters implemented in units and changes in hospital-acquired infections via compliance with these parameters.

• Publisher: Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology Specialty Society of Turkey
• Subject: central line-associated bloodstream infections / Hospital infections / infection control / infection control bundles / ventilator-associated pneumonia