Aseptic Technique Essay

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Aseptic technique refers to practices that help reduce, prevent or even break the chain of infection from health care associated infections due to improper sanitary precautions. Aseptic technique process is divided into two different processes, surgical and medical asepsis. Surgical asepsis is used within a surgical setting where invasive procedures are done and complete sterility is vital. These procedures include anything that is surgically implemented within the body. Medical asepsis helps reduce the number of microorganisms from entering the body. In doing so, good hand washing, hygiene and gloves play a big part in reducing the number of pathogens being transferred to the patient. Although aseptic technique is used every day in health care settings, there is a surprising amount of health professionals that are not properly trained or who are unaware how to greatly reduce contamination and to carry out the necessary precautions within community home settings in patient homes. Within recent years, it has been reported that weather or not it was possible to have a complete sterile environment in a community setting. While the necessary equipment, hand washing procedures and knowledge is available, it’s a concern if sterility can still be maintained. Concerns arise when health professionals use their patient’s personal items to place their sterile instruments and supplies on while providing care for them. Once sterile instruments are placed in a non-sterile environment, the sterility is compromised and is now contaminated. For this reason cross contamination and/or the transfer of microorganisms risk is high, causing the patient to be vulnerable when inserting a catheter or any other procedure that is introduced within the body. While it is impractical for the nurse to provide a sterile surface, there are ways that contamination can be greatly reduced. This

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