Introduction
Some territories need to be chartered in the world regarding personal protective equipment availability, more so for individuals in a panic or fear state. The U.S general surgeon, together with the world health organization, is informing the people not to utilize the PPE required for providers of healthcare, and the shelves are empty with the users overstocking. The WHO asks the general public to avoid purchasing masks (Park, 2020). The WHO makes these suggestions concerning coronavirus containment, whose spread is determined by various realities exposure. Even though various sources present the same ideas, it is clear that healthcare providers are at risk of getting infected with coronavirus and infecting other people with the virus because they need more ideas. The CDC, which is the U.S leading organization, establishes protocols for spread and infection reduction by introducing N95 masks. The Keralty Hospital in Miami, the healthcare facility I work for, utilizes decontaminating N95 and disposal surgical masks. Following the fact that there is a shortage of masks and other PPE requirements, more masks available are needed for both the public and visitors. An immediate solution must be provided for this PPE shortage (Herron et al.,2020). Most nurses utilize the N95 types of masks daily, but a three times decontamination is what makes them effective. Using the masks by the providers in the family practice is essential as it assists them in not getting infected. The depletion of PPE supplies puts individuals in the family practice at risk of infection and spreading the disease.
The problem, Collaborative Interprofessional Team, Intervention, Educational Need, and Quality Initiative
The problem is that there are no good face masks for providers involved in direct care in the family practice, more so while caring for individuals in close settings, including immunocompromised individuals and those at home. Another issue is that completing PPE supplies risks the providers in the family practice because they expose themselves to infection and increase their chances of spreading the disease. Another issue is the unnecessary putting on masks which gives false safety and security, making the disease control centers relax and stop providing guidelines for fighting the disease. The intervention involves vaccination and medication use, and the interprofessional collaborative team includes nurses, doctors, researchers, and teachers. There is a need to educate people concerning the spread, the symptoms, and the prevention measures. The quality initiative entails examining the decrease in the infection rate after the vaccination process and comparing it with the initial rate before vaccination. This will prove the quality of the vaccination process and the vaccines used.
The Settings
The problem of inadequate PPE among the providers can be observed in healthcare settings, especially among the providers in the family practice since it is a close setting. To ensure enough PPE, the providers can use N95 masks which are effective if decontaminated. Educating the families to utilize the masks to avoid the virus infection is also very important. It can be used in the family practice to prevent the nurse from getting an infection from the family he or she educates or spreading the virus to them. Interprofessional collaboration can also be done in healthcare settings to provide a new understanding of the virus and new approaches to treating the disease.
Description: a) Issue or Problem Collaborative Interprofessional Team, Intervention, Educational Need, and Quality Initiative
Inadequate or improper face masks may raise the coronavirus rate of infection among the nurses in the family practice since it is a close setting and they interact with different people raising the chances of infecting more people for providers who are already infected or getting infected from one of the homecare cases (Xiang et al.,2020). The use of N95 masks is the best intervention because they can be decontaminated, and their prevention percentage is higher. Using the N95 masks will reduce the chances of nurses attending to patients in the family practice without masks. That will reduce the rate of infections because nurses can easily infect more people if they get the infection. Interprofessional collaboration involves nurses working with other healthcare professionals, increasing knowledge and evidence-based research concerning ways to address the virus or the disease (Duncan et al., 2021). Educating the public will reduce the chances of infection because people will learn how to use face masks and other prevention measures. Through education, the community is sensitized, and any infection cases can be easily recognized and reported.
Effect of the Problem
Inadequate PPE, such as face masks, increases providers’ chances of getting infected while attending to infected patients (Singh et al., 2020). It also results in a grand increase in the infection rate as nurses interact with many people, which means their infection would result in the infection of many other people (Ueki et al., 2020).
Significance and Implications
This topic is essential to nursing because it emphasizes nurses’ need to have good masks and other necessary protective equipment when attending to patients at home and in healthcare facilities (Yu et al., 2021). This implies that the infection rate will decrease since nurses will not get the infection and will not spread the infection.
Proposed Solution
The solution proposed includes educating the people on the importance of using masks to prevent infection and also to make use of N95 masks which can be decontaminated, instead of using disposal masks (Fikenzer et al., 2020). This solution affects nursing in that it reduces the cost of prevention and the infection rate, reducing workplace pressure in nursing.
References
Duncan, S., Bodurtha, P., & Naqvi, S. (2021). The defensive performance of reusable cloth face masks, disposable procedure masks, KN95 masks, and N95 respirators: Filtration and total inward leakage. PloS one, 16(10), e0258191.
Fikenzer, S., Uhe, T., Lavall, D., Rudolph, U., Falz, R., Busse, M. … & Laufs, U. (2020). Effects of surgical and FFP2/N95 face masks on cardiopulmonary exercise capacity. Clinical research in cardiology, 109(12), 1522-1530.
Herron, J. B. T., Hay-David, A. G. C., Gilliam, A. D., & Brennan, P. A. (2020). Personal protective equipment and Covid 19-a risk to healthcare staff? British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 58(5), 500–502.
Park, S. H. (2020). Personal protective equipment for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Infection & chemotherapy, 52(2), 165.
Singh, N., Tang, Y., & Ogunseitan, O. A. (2020). Environmentally sustainable management of used personal protective equipment. Environmental science & technology, 54(14), 8500-8502.
Ueki, H., Furusawa, Y., Iwatsuki-Horimoto, K., Imai, M., Kabata, H., Nishimura, H., & Kawaoka, Y. (2020). Effectiveness of face masks in preventing airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2. MSphere, 5(5), e00637-20.
Xiang, Y., Song, Q., & Gu, W. (2020). Decontamination of surgical face masks and N95 respirators by dry heat pasteurization for one hour at 70 C. American journal of infection control, 48(8), 880-882.
Yu, J., Chen, J. K., Mowad, C. M., Reeder, M., Hylwa, S., Chisolm, S., … & Atwater, A. R. (2021). Occupational dermatitis to facial personal protective equipment in health care workers: a systematic review. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 84(2), 486–494.
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