Nursing Officer

Job Description:

Responsibilities

• Education of all nursing staff:
• Hand hygiene
• Personal Protective Equipment - appropriate PPE for various situations and preventing inappropriate use.
• Preventing needle stick injuries and the protocol for NSI / mucosal exposure.
• Biomedical waste management
• Linen management
• Isolation precautions & communication of information during transfer of patients.
• Notifiable diseases and management of outbreaks
• Prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia, surgical site infections, line related blood stream infections and catheter associated urinary tract infections
• Method of performing blood cultures
• Cleaning, disinfection and sterilization of items/equipment/environment and fogging
• Handling blood and body fluid spills
• Surveillance (includes bedside education and feedback to shift in charge/manager)
• Hand hygiene compliance
• Care of IV Lines (peripheral & central)
• Urinary catheter care
• Suctioning method
• Linen handling
• Biomedical waste management
• Cleanliness – patients bedside, window sills, floor, ceiling, AC grills, drinking water area and toilets.
• Housekeeping staff - method of cleaning, dilution of disinfectants, terminal cleaning.
• Ensuring appropriate isolation precautions are followed
• Documentation
• Hand hygiene audit
• Surgical site infection rate
• CAUTI rate
• Needle stick injury rate
• VAP, CLABSI – in ITUs
• Linen audit
• Biomedical waste management audit
• Surveillance cultures – to send environmental cultures according to surveillance sampling schedule and document the results.
• Details of patients with positive cultures – to discuss with HIC consultant or Consultant with an interest in Infectious Diseases. Obtain relevant details to determine if pt has a VAP, CLABSI, CAUTI or SSI.