GPHC adopting ‘Link Nurse’ system to reduce infection rate

May 18, 2014 News

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By adopting a strategic programme dubbed ‘Link Nurse’, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) is well on its way to better addressing the spread of infections within its environs.
While tackling the spread of infection has long been gaining the attention of the hospital, so much so that it introduced a Quality Improvement Department, it is anticipated that these efforts will be intensified through the newest venture.
Speaking to this publication recently, GPHC’s Infection Control Officer, Caroline Hicks, a nurse of 22 years, said that the primary aim being embraced by the Quality Improvement Department is to prevent the spread of infections between staffers and patients and unto their families.
Moreover, through the ‘Link Nurse’ programme, attempts could be made to detect and arrest bad practices in infection control, said Hicks, who has been a part of the hospital’s Infection Control efforts for the past three years.

In order to ensure that the desired results are achieved, Hicks, the holder of a Degree in Public Health, said that moves were made to select at least one nurse from each clinical area at the GPHC to act as the link between their respective areas. These selected nurses, according to her, are also expected to report to Infection Control Officers and by extension the hospital Infection Control and Prevention Committee. “Their primary role is to increase the awareness of infection control issues in their own ward or unit so that they can bring about some awareness and motivate other staffers to practice good infection control,” said Hicks.
Embracing such an approach is especially important, she said since “infections are all around us and it is therefore everybody’s concern; whether we are at home, at school…just about everywhere.”
However, being in the hospital setting, she noted, is of even more concern as such facilities have the responsibility to cater to the needs of “sick people who come with various infections, illnesses and these can spread.”
Moreover, she underscored that the move towards intensifying infection control and prevention efforts is one geared towards ensuring that health workers continually practice in a sterile manner that can effectively lend to the prevention of infections.
Working together with Hicks is yet another Nurse, Nigerian-born Akputo Thompson, who also functions as an Infection Control Officer at the GPHC.
Thompson, a nurse of 18 years, first joined the Quality Improvement Department earlier this year, and like Hicks, has been exposed to a number of departments of the public hospital since he migrated here some five years ago.
He pointed out that since the Department is focused on the reduction of infections, “we have tried to start surveillance to track infections and better understand how to control and prevent them.”
In fact it was Thompson who was the one behind advocating for the hospital to embrace the ‘Link Nurse’ initiative which has been introduced at a number of hospitals around the world since the 1980s.
“We felt that at this time we really need this in this specific area,” said Thompson of the intensified infection control efforts, even as he disclosed that just recently a workshop was spearheaded for selected nurses to help them fully observe practices of all individuals utilising the hospital spaces. This, according to him, will help them to support their monitoring efforts with a view of reducing infections throughout the hospital in the quest to achieving a zero infection rate.
The ‘Link Nurse’ system has long been recognised as a channel to communicate challenges observed in the health sector. The system was adopted at the GPHC after it was endorsed by the hospital’s Director of Nursing and its Infection Control Committee Chairman.
The Centres for Diseases Control and Prevention and the local Ministry of Health have also endorsed the venture with the latter committing support to continued ‘Link Nurse’ workshops which is expected to be conducted once, each month for six month.
The first workshop was held earlier this month with the participants being exposed to sessions on surveillance, the importance of hand hygiene, personal and protective equipment, health care associated infections and the proper ways of handling and storing medications as well as documentation to trace infection rates.
The participants were also exposed to a course in cleaning, disinfection and sterilisation of the materials used in the clinical areas of the hospital.
Each participating nurse was presented with a badge and certificate of completion.

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