Having a Patient on Isolation

Apologies if the .gif is making you a little nauseous, but you will understand in a second.

This semester I am working on an infectious disease unit which means that many of our patients are on some kind of transmission based precaution(s).  Now you may be asking yourself, "Emily what is that and why would someone be on it?"  Good question dear reader.

Transmission based precautions can be broken down into four categories:

• Standard: hand washing, gloves when giving injections/touching bodily fluids, eye protection if some bodily fluid might splash on you
• Contact ( Clostridium difficile, MRSA): standard precaution + gown and gloves when you enter the room
• Droplet (influenza, N. meningitidis, pertussis a.k.a. whooping cough, and rhinovirus): contact precaution + mask
• Airborne (chickenpox, measles, and tuberculosis): droplet precaution + possible respirator

Unfortunately, there is a rise of super bugs in hospitals which means a patient can pick something up while receiving treatment for an entirely different chief complaint (this is especially true on an infectious disease unit where people's immune systems are already compromised).  As a result, health care providers follow strict protocol to try and minimize the spread of germs.  If you have a person on contact precaution that means putting on a new yellow gown every time you enter their room (hence the above picture).  It is a wasteful process, but does help cut down on infections.