Introduction
Antiseptic solutions are vital in any hospital setting because such environments are prone to many infections. This is because people suffering from various diseases come to the hospital with the aim of getting treatment. In the same hospital, there are patients suffering from other diseases, and if not taken care of, the cross-infection may take place. This can lead to a situation where people go to the hospital and leave the premises worse than they went (Burchard & Donald S. Gann, 2000). Therefore, antiseptic solutions help in the disinfection of hospital equipment and other materials required in the process of treating patients.
Body
Management of hospitals may decide to carry out research to establish the most effective antiseptic solution to be used in their hospital. This may involve several steps to come up with the most effective chemical that assures hospital workers and patients of safety within the hospital. It is not easy to change antiseptics because it should be known to be effective before introducing them to the hospital workers. It is vital to carry out laboratory experiments in order to approve the adaptation of any antiseptic. It can be fatal if an error is made and a defective antiseptic solution is used in cleaning and disinfecting hospital clothing and washing hospitals (World Health Organization, 2012). Therefore, care must be taken before any decision is arrived at by the hospital management.
Hospitals must come up with an infection control program that should take charge of changing antiseptic solutions in their premises (Larson, 1995). There should be a committee including the hospital management to look into positive and negative aspects involved in the change of antiseptic solutions. This committee is the one to decide on the design of trying different antiseptic solutions to be considered. There are several designs that can be used for administering antiseptic solutions in hospitals. The most ideal one is the randomized controlled trial which involves nurses monitoring its application and reaction. For example, the antiseptic in question should be administered to selected patients with nurses monitoring them for three hours and recording how they react to bacteria around. If any antiseptic solution has negative results then it is scrapped, and the patient is introduced to the approved antiseptic already in use to kill the bacteria (Larson, 2001). This is vital because if the bacteria already exposed to the skin is left unattended it may turn out to be harmful to the patient. In the case where it reacted positively, then, the report should be forwarded to the committee for approval. The committee should work towards ensuring that the hospital gets the most effective antiseptic solution. By doing this, they will be working in the right way as the law and ethics expect them to protect and save lives.
Then, the management should come up with a program for educating the staff about the importance of having an effective antiseptic solution in their hospitals. Therefore, they should come up with a manner of letting the staff understand the need to change from the current antiseptic to another antiseptic which should be more effective and reliable (Hugh, 2007). This makes implementation and the trial period of the antiseptic a success. This is because when all parties in health care are involved in the change, the overall process of strategy change becomes easy.
Then, the management should play another role in preventing infection by providing protective wear for health workers. This should be in order to curve the rate at which infections can be passed from one person to another. This is vital because body fluids are responsible for many infections that take place in hospitals. This is because, when the fluids of patients get into contact with the skin of health care personnel, there are high chances of infection taking place. It is also advisable for the management to have a system where antiseptic solutions are available at all times. This is to ensure that health care providers who get into contact with body fluids disinfect their skins. Precautions must be taken by health care providers and management to ensure that no infections take place when on duty (O’Donnell & Flávio, 2009). This includes washing their clothing in the approved disinfectant to kill germs, and once they get adapted to this routine, they help in developing a design for changing antiseptic solutions.
This design must be created in a way such that the solution to be adopted by everyone in the hospital to take care of their staff and patients is cheap and effective. Cost evaluation is extremely essential because all organizations are run with the sole objective of saving costs and maximizing profits (Vajpayee, 2010). This means that the hospital must not only look at the effectiveness of their antiseptic solution but also look at the costs. In regards to this, they should go for chemicals that are relatively cheap and that offer them the best protection against germs.
The design should also have an implementation plan which should aim at ensuring that the antiseptic solution most preferred will be available in all departments. This will ensure that the change runs in all hospital departments simultaneously hence helping the management achieves their objective of changing to a better antiseptic solution. It should be done in a way such that all members of the hospital management together with the staff agree with recommendations made after the trial of the solution. The hospital management should ensure that they pay visits to the company supplying them with antiseptic solutions. Such visits give management the opportunity to learn about the proper usage of antiseptic solutions. They may also get a chance to visit laboratories at the factory and understand the chemical processes involved in producing the antiseptic. They should also invite experts from the antiseptic manufacturing company to educate their staff on their products (Garner & Favero, 1986). These kinds of training facilitated by the hospital management through the company supplying them with the solution are necessary. These experts interact with the hospital staff enabling them to ask all questions regarding the solution and its applications. This turns out to be advantageous to the organization because its staff members end up being equipped on how they should carry out the trials effectively. When trying antiseptic solutions, knowledgeable personnel are required to avoid cases of negligence causing more harm than benefit to the participants. The solutions to be tested need to have ready solutions to neutralize their effects.
Conclusion
In fact, organizations must take keenly matters regarding antiseptic solutions and infection control programs because they play key roles in curving the cross infection. This can be fatal because it means that patients will be infecting other patients in a hospital (Platt & Bucknall, 1984). Health care workers may be at risk too hence becoming dangerous when everybody is infected. This means that patients will lack health care services as workers get infected by their patients.
References
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