The Value of a Holistic Approach to Infection Prevention

By Julie Heinrichs, Senior Marketing Manager

Ask any healthcare provider about their organization’s point of care priorities and infection prevention invariably makes this list. Infection prevention has been a focus for many years, in both ambulatory and acute care settings. The challenge has often been executing on that priority.

In a previous white paper, “Designing for Prevention: How the Right Design Approach Can Enhance Your Infection Prevention Program,” we discussed the new urgency the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to infection prevention and provided three design-related steps healthcare providers and organizations can take to enhance infection prevention efforts.

While these steps individually are important, they become even more powerful when they are part of a broader, more encompassing commitment to infection prevention. In this white paper, “Infection Prevention: Taking a Holistic Approach to Protect Patients and Staff at the Point of Care,” we discuss the importance of taking a holistic approach with infection prevention programs and identify five key components that are central to such an approach. Taking a holistic approach to infection prevention can assist healthcare providers in determining threats and identifying successful solutions.

More on the five components central to taking a broad, holistic approach to infection prevention at the point of care in this infographic.

The spread and transmission of contagions and infectious agents at the point of care can happen in many ways. Taking a holistic approach to infection prevention helps ensure all the bases are covered. It also can enable a consistent and sustained focus to be created and maintained to help identify often overlooked threats and opportunities for successfully dealing with them.