Education for patients and family members is also provided at times to help them cope with an infection or prevent spread to another family member. This may include interviewing the patient when the infection could cause an outbreak in others or to determine a cause of the infection, such as with food poisoning. Additional duties of the ICP include development of policies related to infection prevention measures and assisting other departments of the healthcare facility with their policies. Community service projects include educational lectures or assisting other facilities with infection control program management. Surgical Site Infections Infected surgical wounds are frequently caused by organisms from the patient's own skin.
Any organism can be serious and can cost thousands of dollars per infection.
Despite extensive prevention measures, surgical site infections do occur, but are aggressively fought when they happen. Frequently, a person with an infection at one body site will develop a bacterial infection into the blood stream. He or she may or may not have a fever. Pneumonia Many persons come to the healthcare setting suffering from pneumonia. The ICPs concern is to prevent the spread of pneumonia to persons who do not have an infection but have procedures performed or have low immunity to infection.