Health care units' focus needs to include besides treatment for critical patients, infections prevention management

An intensive care unit is a hospital department that offers high levels of treatment for people who are critically ill with problems such as failing major organs systems, for instance, the heart, liver, and the brain. The patients are very vulnerable and susceptible to infections if they are not handled in the proper way. However, various precautions can be taken so as to subside the infections. Some of the risk factors in intensive care units include gram-negative bacteria and epidemiology related elements. Accordingly, the essay discusses how the management of health care units can adopt a change process geared towards decreasing infections in intensive care units.

The management should consider creating a conducive working environment as a change process of minimizing infections in ICU. The move will not only prevent the infection of the patients but also the care providers especially nurses who spend a significant amount of time attending to the patients. The initiative will include hiring competent personnel in all specialized disciplines in a health care facility. Nurses, physicians, dieticians, cleaning people, and therapists have key mandates in ensuring that risks factors associated with infection are reduced substantially (In Marquis & Huston, 2014). For effective performance, the health care practitioners should work together to reduce the risk of infections. Moreover, they should be very cautious because they are the most potential disease carriers because they frequently attend to the patients and thus, should have high levels of hygiene at all times (Pronovost, Needham, Berenholtz, Sinopoli, Chu, Cosgrove, & Bander, 2015).

Isolation of patients is a very useful step towards reducing chances of infection of especially of highly communicable diseases and known carriers of bacterial infections that the management should adopt. Immune compromised patients can, therefore, be monitored properly without the risk of opportunistic infections. The rooms should have glass partitions and well-fitting doors for observation and ventilation (In Marquis & Huston, 2014). The majority of the people in ICU lack key motor skills and thus have limited control over their bodies. In this regard, the healthcare professionals should provide primary care services to the patients in an objective of reducing the severity of the infection risk factors. For instance, the physicians can use impregnated catheters to reduce the rates of Urinary Tract Infections associated with the conventional devices (Pronovost et al., 2015).

The management should advocate for safety measures such as hand washing and sterilizing equipment as a measure of reducing infections. Unhygienic handling of patients and use of unsterilized tools are some of the major factors that contribute to bacteria related infections (Pronovost et al., 2015). The administration should also consider investing heavily in the healthcare infrastructure and medication as well. Research shows that the use of antibiotics in ICUs results in reduced infections since they boost the immunity of the patients (In Marquis, Huston, 2014). However, the antibiotics should be administered in a manner that reduces the chances of the infection causative factors especially bacteria from developing resistance.

In sum, the management of health care facilities needs to implement a change process related to creating a conducive working environment in an attempt to reduce infections in ICU. The administration should thus, hire competent medical care providers and invest heavily in infrastructure. Various supportive policies such as isolation of patients should also be considered.