Protecting patients and healthcare workers from a variety of diseases has become more important than ever before, with complex diseases like Hepatitis B / C and HIV competing with one another in terms of severity. Hepatitis C, for example, can increase the risk of developing diabetes by up to 10times. With more than 25% of people infected with HIV, it has been known to be infectious alongside hepatitis.
In a case where a healthcare worker has been exposed, the rapid spread is imminent considering the globalization of travel. The chances of others being infected are high.
The issue is that even though identifying and treating diseases is vital to your health, and it can sometimes be risky for health workers. Thus, providing proper training for health workers has now become not only an important part of compliance but necessary for personal development too whether you’ve already got a stable healthcare job or you’re looking for regular or locum tenens jobs in healthcare, training keeps you updated, safe and up to date with current health requirements. Check out some of the types of training every health professional needs.
1. Safe injection practices training
Unsafe injection practice is a risk to both patients and medical experts. Bloodborne pathogens (BBP) and other infections are sometimes easily spread by the improper use of needles and unhealthy medication practices.
This has been demonstrated over time in out-breaking investigations carried out by states and local health departments. Health professionals at Bloodborne Pathogens Training recommend training workers and equipping them with the right tools to protect them against health hazards and exposure to infected blood.
Unsafe injection practices put patients and healthcare providers alike at risk of infectious and non-infectious effects. This type of training has been identified as helpful in a wide variety of settings with the outcome proving that;
a. Related harm is entirely preventable
b. Injection safety is every workers’ responsibility.
2. Hazard Identification And Risk Assessment.
This training will help the healthcare worker to process and evaluate situations concerning health they perceive could have the potential to cause harm. The common term often used to describe this entire process is risk assessment.
After evaluating the risks associated with certain hazards, the results of the evaluation would guide the researcher in selecting what management techniques (like elimination, substitution, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment) to be used.
When the risk has been identified, controlling and eliminating the hazard altogether becomes the next step. The techniques mentioned above can be applied; if elimination is not feasible, substitution becomes the next best approach to curb the risk.
3. Occupational Hygiene
Hygiene is a practice that every health worker should be familiar with because of how delicate their work is. This, however, is not always the case. Several workers really don’t know how to care for themselves and work.
Occupational safety is a fundamental discipline that should be understood, enforced, and practiced by decision-makers, health professionals, and other staff that contribute to the smooth running of a hospital.
The role that occupational hygiene plays in the protection of workers’ health and the facility’s environment can’t be taken for granted. For space where germs and diseases are almost always present, as such, proper hygiene needs to be really enforced to ensure everyone is safe.
4. Behavior-Based Safety
This is mandatory training required to actively engage employees in promoting safety improvement in the workplace. It involves identifying practices significant to reducing the risk of injury.
These practices are then compiled into a form of a checklist(s) that workers can use to conduct observations of their colleagues and provide positive feedback on best practices. This would increase the consistency of safe habits in the organization. Health care teams can utilize this knowledge to analyze information gotten from observations to develop actionable plans that’d help in removing obstacles to safe practices and, ultimately, promote continuous improvement in safety.
5. Competency-Based Training
CBT is similar to formal education but has some major distinctions. How? It is more of learning by doing rather than simply acquiring new information. It concentrates on the development of the required set of abilities any professional would need for optimal performance at work. Simply put, it is the practical application of new knowledge, skills, and attitudes on the job.
Competency training has the clinical trainer functioning as a mentor or guide rather than as a lecturer. While CBT has been widely used for in-service training for health care workers, this approach is equally applicable to the pre-service setting for medical students training to become professionals.
Having a safe and well-equipped space makes the training process more effective for both mentors and trainees. Training helps develop the skills of health care workers and provides them with the necessary data to improve the delivery of their services to patients. Apart from that, it helps in ensuring the worker’s operations are done safely.