從醫院的角度看護理人員在感染控制的角色與功能

Hospital Perspective on Nursing Staff Role and Function in Infection Control

醫療照護相關感染不但會增加病人的死亡率也會加重病人的疾病嚴重度，對醫療照護品質及醫療費用支出會造成嚴重的影響。醫院是治療與緩解病人疾病的場所，醫院和醫療團隊成員均有責任與義務避免病人、家屬、訪客和全體工作人員遭受感染，因此預防感染傳播或流行是醫療團隊成員重要的任務。護理人員是團隊成員中接觸病人、家屬、以及其他醫療工作者層面最廣的一群。本文將從醫護照護相關感染的高危險群、感染控制的監控與執行及醫療照護相關感染之防治措施詳述之，以展現護理人員於感控之角色與功能。

Medical treatment-related infections may increase mortality rates and worsen patient conditions while raising medical costs and reducing quality of treatment. Hospitals must shield patients as well as their families, visitors, and hospital staff from infection. Therefore, an important mission of hospital medical staffs is infection prevention. Nurses have the most frequent and extensive contact with patients and their families. Their work also requires frequent contact with fellow medical staffs. Nurses thus face a particularly high risk of infection. This paper identifies those individuals in hospital settings who face the highest risk of medical care-related infections and describes existing infection control and monitoring practices as well as medical care-related infection prevention and control measures in order to identify the infection control role and function of nurses.