The healthcare marketplace in the next millennium and nurses' roles in infection prevention and control.
For the past several years, constant changes in the health care marketplace have been dominated by the demand to manage costs. This has resulted in declining numbers of hospitals, hospital beds, and occupancy rates, along with increasing severity of illness in the patients who are hospitalized. It has long been known that infection prevention and control activities reduce risks for morbidity and mortality in patients and caregivers. Infection risk reduction activities are integral to nursing care delivery in any health care setting; however, the increasing stresses on care providers and declining staff-to-patient ratios compromise these priorities. Nurses share responsibility for infection risk reduction with other health care personnel who all need to work together with infection control professionals (ICPs) to develop and use prevention and control strategies based on scientific evidence.
D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000639:trends; D008389:Marketing of Health Services / Q000639:trends*; D009726:Nurses / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009729:Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration; D014481:United States