Hospital-acquired pneumonia is a severe disease and the reason for the deaths of many people. It is also known as the nosocomial one and is usually caused not by a virus but a bacterial infection. This disease refers to any pneumonia that a patient contracts in a hospital during at least 48–72 hours after being admitted (Meehan and McKenna, 2020). Since it is a serious problem that threatens people and hospitals, some solutions have to be created in order to eliminate this issue. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a way of decreasing the number of patients with hospital-acquired pneumonia and support this idea with several articles.
It is of vital importance to reduce the risks of hospital-acquired pneumonia appearing at hospitals as there are severe consequences of this disease. They include discharge to a long-term care facility, expensive medical treatments, and prolonged lengths of stay in the hospital (Hess et al., 2011). Avoiding the aftermaths depends not only on nursing care but also on the awareness of patients of common measures of preventing the disease. The key idea for reducing the number of people with hospital-acquired pneumonia is that patients should be educated about the host and environmental factors of its development. According to Adamuz et al. (2015), implementing individualized educational programs for patients with hospital-acquired pneumonia is rather effective and helps to reduce rehospitalizations and subsequent healthcare visits. If people know the factors of the development of this disease, they are more protected from catching it.
Some of the patients are at the highest risk of catching hospital-acquired pneumonia. The risk factors include previous antibiotic treatment; a coexisting illness such as kidney, liver, lung, and heart dysfunction; age older than 70; and recent abdominal or chest surgery (Sethi, 2019). Moreover, the use of proton pump inhibitors like esomeprazole or pantoprazole for gastroesophageal reflux disease treatment may also be the risk factor.
Reference List
Adamuz, J. et al. (2015) ‘Impact of an educational program to reduce healthcare resources in community-acquired pneumonia: the EDUCAP randomized controlled trial’, PLoS One, (10)10.
Meehan, C. D. and McKenna, C. (2020) ‘Preventing hospital-acquired pneumonia’, American Nurse Journal, 15(2), pp. 16-21.
Sethi, S. (2019) Hospital-acquired pneumonia.