Isolation Precautions to Prevent HAIs in Healthcare Setting

Matt Linam, MD, MS, medical director of Infection Prevention at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, discusses the importance of isolation precautions to prevent healthcare associated infections.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability).

“[Un]fortunately there’s not a lot of evidence that relates to parents and visitors using isolation precautions and its positive impact on preventing infections. Having said that, we know that parents and visitors spend quite some time in a patient’s room and it can potentially become contaminated while they’re in there and take those organisms out into the healthcare environment.

One positive thing is, most of the time, parents and visitors are only visiting one patient so they’re not necessarily transmitting from room to room to room like we see with healthcare workers. But, hand hygiene and use of isolation precautions, [have] been shown in multiple studies to be beneficial for healthcare workers and preventing healthcare associated infections, so it makes good sense.”