More outpatient attention is needed on quality improvement initiatives for infection prevention, hand hygiene and injection safety in outpatient settings, according to a recent study published in the American Journal of Infection Control.
The authors of the study examined infection prevention policies and practices at 15 outpatient sites across New Mexico during a medical student outpatient rotation.
Although the sites had implemented an average of 92.8 percent of recommended quality improvement policies and practices, there were still areas for improvement. For instance, of the 163 injection safety opportunities observed, clinicians only disinfected the medication vial rubber septums with alcohol 78.4 percent of the time before piercing a patient.
Additionally, 330 hand hygiene observations revealed clinicians used alcohol-based handrub 33.9 percent of the time, soap and water 29.1 percent of the time and no hand hygiene measures 37 percent of the time.
"These findings support the need for ongoing infection prevention quality improvement initiatives in outpatient settings and underscore the importance of assessing both self-report and observed behavior of infection prevention compliance," concluded the study authors.
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