Infection, Prevention & Control

There are around 200,000 healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in Australian acute healthcare facilities each year. This makes HAIs the most common complication affecting patients in hospital. As well as causing unnecessary pain and suffering for patients and their families, these adverse events prolong hospital stays and are costly to the health system.

Infection prevention and control uses a risk management approach to minimise or prevent the transmission of infection. The two-tiered approach of standard and transmission-based precautions provides a high level of protection to patients/residents, healthcare workers and other people in healthcare settings

All people potentially harbour infectious microorganisms. As such, it must be assumed that all blood and body fluids/substances are potentially infectious. Standard precautions are the work practices required to achieve a basic level of infection prevention and control. The use of standard precautions aims to minimise, and where possible, eliminate the risk of transmission of infection, particularly those caused by blood borne viruses.

Hand hygiene is considered one of the most important infection control measures for reducing the spread of infection. Hand hygiene is a general term that refers to any action of hand cleansing, such as handwashing or handrubbing.

Microorganisms are either present on hands most of the time (resident flora) or acquired during healthcare activities (transient flora). The aim of hand hygiene is to reduce the number of microorganisms on your hands, particularly transient flora which may present the greater risk for infection transmission.

Infection Prevention is everybody’s responsibility, please follow guidelines and directions of healthcare workers when visiting residents / patients at Yarrawonga Health.