Strategies to Prevent Infection Transmission in Pediatric Healthcare Settings

Matt Linam, MD, MS, medical director of Infection Prevention at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, discusses how visitors can help prevent infection transmission in pediatric healthcare settings.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability).

“I think there [are] two key messages that I would want to send to parents and visitors of children [who] are hospitalized. The first is, hand hygiene really is the number one thing. Making sure that everyone, including themselves, do hand hygiene on the way into the room and when they leave the room, that’s really one of the number one strategies to prevent transmission of infection and keep their child [who’s] in the hospital safe.

The other is making sure that no one comes to visit that hospitalized child if they may have [infectious disease] symptoms; that’s a way that parents can really help us out, [by] discouraging other family members or visitors from coming to visit if they may be symptomatic.”