12 Jan You are the infection control nurse of a 100-bed inpatient healthcare facility

Purpose of Assignment:

Nurses have a role in ensuring safety and quality in healthcare and evaluating potential threats to quality and safety. A response plan is useful in determining the steps and actions that staff will take in a situation such as a disease outbreak.

Course Competency:

· Evaluate responses of communicable diseases in healthcare today.

Scenario:

You are the infection control nurse of a 100-bed inpatient healthcare facility. With the increasing potential for a communicable disease exposure in your facility, the chief clinical officer has tasked you with the creation of a hospital response plan for a communicable disease outbreak in your healthcare facility.

Instructions:

Create a hospital response plan that effectively addresses a healthcare facility’s actions in response to a communicable disease outbreak of your choosing. The response plan should:

1. Identify a communicable disease and explain why this particular disease necessitates a response plan.

2. Be supported by current evidence.

3. Include guidance on the following:

4. Logistics: adequate physical resources and services required

5. Triage: appropriate protocols and location

6. Communication: timely and effective contact internal and external of the facility regarding a suspected or confirmed outbreak

7. Infection control: sufficient measures to protect hospital employees, patients, and the public

8. Human resources: efficient management of human capital in response to a suspected or confirmed outbreak

9. Responsibilities of various hospital departments: effective interventions by primary and ancillary departments in response to a suspected or confirmed outbreak

10. Reflect the nurse’s ability to:

11. Assess and identify the disease outbreak

12. Support containment and treatment of the disease

13. Facilitate timely communication regarding the outbreak

Resources:

· For additional assistance on creating an emergency response plan, please read the Library Answer to: How do I create an emergency response plan?

· For additional information on hospital preparedness for epidemics, consider exploring the World Health Organization’s 2014 report, Hospital Preparedness for Epidemics