A1 Health facilities audit for infection prevention and control practices in Nyandarua County, Kenya
Helen Wangai1*, Felister Kiberenge2†
1Department of Health Services, Nyandarua County, Kenya; 2Ministry of Health, Nairobi, Kenya
Correspondence: Helen Wangai (hwwangai@yahoo.com)
Background and objectives
Infection prevention and control is a set of practices, protocols, and procedures that are put in place to prevent infections that are associated with health care service provision settings. It is an element of quality of care and safety in health care service delivery; health worker occupational health and safety practices; medical waste management; and is also concerned with clinical and public health surveillance and action. Healthcare facilities are ideal settings for the transmission of infections to patients (who are more susceptible), healthcare workers, their families and communities. Healthcare associated infections lead to prolonged hospital stay, increased cost of care and death. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess infection prevention and control practices in various types and levels of health facilities in Nyandarua County, Kenya.
Methodology
A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 47 health facilities that were sampled from a total of 153, using cluster sampling technique. The facilities were drawn from public, private and faith based organizations distributed across 5 sub-counties of Nyandarua County, Kenya. Data collection method was purely quantitative using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive analysis was done using SPSS version 17.
Results
42/47 of the facilities were observing safe injection practices. Only 8/26 of the public health facilities had all their workers immunized against hepatitis B despite procurement, supply and distribution of adequate vaccine doses for the entire health workforce. Poor medical waste management practices where 37/47, 15/47 and 28/47 were segregating waste, had colour coded bins and had functional incinerators respectively.
Only 28/47of the sampled facilities were decontaminating patient reusable equipment/instruments appropriately. Electricity, gas, charcoal and firewood were fuels used for autoclaving. About 33/47 and 30/47 of the sampled facilities had running water and soap/hand disinfectant respectively.
Conclusions
The findings revealed several gaps in the implementation of the national IPC policy especially in healthcare worker occupational health and safety, reprocessing of patient reusable equipment/instruments, medical waste management and hand hygiene practices. These findings will assist the department of health in designing interventions for strengthening and improving IPC practices, to mobilize and allocate resources for IPC activities, improve infrastructure and supplies in line with the strategic priority 5 of the national strategic plan for IPC for health care services in Kenya. The study findings will also provide county specific baseline data that will help in: measuring future performances, in research and add to the existing knowledge of other scholars on infection prevention and control.
Acknowledgments
“This work is based on the research supported by the National Research Foundation”
Oral presentation prize: Silver ICAN medal