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Infection prevention in long-term care: re-evaluating the system using a human factors engineering approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2018

Morgan Jane Katz Open the ORCID record for Morgan Jane Katz [Opens in a new window]  and
Ayse P Gurses Open the ORCID record for Ayse P Gurses [Opens in a new window]
Morgan Jane Katz*
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
Ayse P Gurses
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute Center for Health Care Human Factors, Baltimore Maryland
*
Author for correspondence: Morgan Katz, Johns Hopkins Bayview, 5200 Eastern Avenue, MFL Building Rm 381, Baltimore MD 21224. E-mail: mkatz26@jhmi.edu
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Abstract

The emergence and spread of extensively multidrug-resistant organisms is a public health crisis, and long-term care settings have been identified as a reservoir for the cultivation of these organisms. Long-term care settings are now taking on increasingly ill residents with complicated medical problems, indwelling devices, and significant healthcare exposure, all of which are considered risk factors selecting for resistant organisms. Despite this, guidelines addressing infection prevention procedures in long-term care remain vague, and implementation of these guidelines is challenging, largely due to staff turnover, limited resources, knowledge gaps, and lack of organizational support. Human factors engineering approaches have emerged as an important innovation to address patient safety issues and develop interventions in the healthcare work system (ie, tools and technologies, tasks, organization, physical environment) that support human performance, which, in turn, lead to improvements in processes (eg, compliance with infection prevention guidelines) and outcomes (eg, reduced infection rates). We propose the concept of using the methods and approaches from the scientific field of human factors engineering to address the unique challenges of implementing infection prevention in the long-term care setting.

Type
Commentary
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 95 - 99
Copyright
© 2018 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved. 

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Footnotes

Cite this article: Katz MJ, Gurses AP. (2019). Infection prevention in long-term care: re-evaluating the system using a human factors engineering approach. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology 2019, 40, 95–99 doi: 10.1017/ice.2018.308

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