What should I do With This Information?

Posted By Chris on December 28, 2010

One of the more anxiety producing situations in Long-term Care is how to treat a specific organism. The scenario may begin like this:

Somehow, the DON has chosen you to be this week’s newly appointed Staff Developer/Infection Control Nurse; you, with virtually no experience in the field  are summoned to station #1, where you are told that a report only recently found under the printer dedicated to faxed lab reports,  identifies an organism that sounds extremely suspicious. You aren’t an Infection Control Nurse. Yes, you are.

You assume your new role, as you stare unbelievably at a culture report that makes no sense to you; then you wonder how it could be you are not familiar with an organism that sounds as though it must have recently been named one of the most dangeroius super bugs in Long-term Care by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).   

The report may name multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROS) or any number of lesser known, but still, suspicious sounding critters. In any case, the report looks out of the ordinary, especially because you don’t usually read culture reports. Even so, they did think you a great candidate for this position, given the fact that the last Staff Developer/Infection Control Nurse quit on Friday, it’s Monday, and you walked in the door first.  What should you do? What can you do? CDC: Infection Control in Long-term Care

  • Should you isolate? CDC: Isolation Guidelines
  • Should you maintain Standard Precautions? CDC Standard Precautions
  • Should you call your Infection Control Consultant? Do you have one?
  • Should you figure this out yourself?
  • Should you take that job they offered you down the street? 

What was that organism? MRSA? VRE? ESBLS? KPC? Or was it one of the other usual suspects?  First, don’t panic, really. Maybe you should conduct a little surveillance and ask yourself this:

Are you concerned about an organism you can see is causing signs and symptoms of infection in a patient? Or, is this an organism reported on a patient’s culture report but, who after careful assessment, has not shown any signs and symptoms of infection? This can be confusing. So, what should you do with this information?

Stay tuned..

Categories: Infection Prevention in LTC
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About the author

Chris

Hello, my name is Chris Walter. I am a Registered Nurse with experience in several nursing specialties including Surgery, Case Management, Legal Nurse Consulting, Community Health, and Infection Prevention and Control. I have a BSN and a Public Health Nursing Certificate (PHN) in the stateof California. My hope is to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and resources with Health Care Workers who have an interest in the specialty of Infection Prevention and Control in Long-term Care. Please feel comfortable contacting me at icpreventionist@aol.com and share your comments with The Preventionist as well. I consider myself a perpetual student, rather than an expert. My intent is to provide information based on recommendations from the masters of infection control and prevention such as; • The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (A.P.I.C.) • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) • State Department of Public Health All information contained within The Preventionist site is strictly for informational purposes only. None of the statements on this site are to be considered a recommendation for treatment of any particular disease or health related condition.

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