What immediate steps should you take to prevent tuberculosis from becoming an HAI at your facility?
The first step is to take the patient in an airborne infection isolation room to ensure minimal contact with the patient since tuberculosis is an airborne disease. The second step is to isolate and performing a tuberculosis test on every patient present in the setting who happened to get into contact with the infected patient. Further, Placing all persons infected with the disease under medication as well as the patient is necessary to ensure that patients do not succumb to the condition due to lack of appropriate infrastructure in the hospital
What could be done in the future to prevent this situation from occurring?
The situation in the hospital exposes people to airborne diseases due to the lack of enough rooms and beds to isolate the patients. The first recommendation is for the hospital to come up with a plan to pool financial resources together to facilitate the construction of isolation rooms and the purchase of more beds. The hospital could also introduce a TB infection control program meant to avoid such scenarios from happening again.
What other information would be helpful as you make decisions in this scenario?
Information on the medical history of the patients in the emergency room suffering from chronic diseases would be helpful when making decisions in this incidence. Such information would help one to identify which patients are more vulnerable to contacting a TB infection from the patient hence employing control measures to prevent them from getting infected.