Audiology: Significant Direct And Indirect Patient Contact

Audiology for number of reasons. Firstly, Audiology needs and involves significant direct and indirect patient contact. To name a few processes like otoscopy, PTA, tympanometry, handling hearing implants, ear molds and cerumen management exposes clinician to various objects and bodily fluids. (Bankaitis & Kemp 2000). Secondly, audiologists work in different types of clinical setups such as health care facilities, hospitals, physicians’ offices, clinics, schools, aged care facilities and provide services to different patients who vary over aspects like age, veiled diseases, nutritional background, history of medication, past treatments and socioeconomic status which weaken one’s immune system. Resulting audiologists, working with weakened
Transmission based Precautions

Contact precautions, droplet precautions and airborne precautions (PPE required protective gear for cerumen management) Placement of patients, Environmental cleaning.

Hand Hygiene 5 moments of hand hygiene set by WHO implies that hand hygiene must be performed before and after every episode of patient contact. This includes: before touching a patient; before a procedure; after a procedure or body fluid exposure risk; after touching a patient; and after touching a patient’s surroundings. Hand hygiene should be performed after the removal of gloves. In addition to this cough etiquette which includes covering while sneezing, disposing tissue should be followed by performing hand hygiene. In absence of soap and water, disinfectants can be used to clean hands.
Hand hygiene, appliance of right kind of personal equipment, patient positioning, isolating the patient and treating, cleaning of the environment all are transmission based precautions. In some conditions, even patients can be asked to wear mask if shows symptoms of air borne diseases. Standard procedure of Cleaning and disinfecting all the equipment in contact of patient should be done as transmission based precaution. A study by Bankaitis, (2002) revealed data indicating that hearing aid surfaces can possess some amount of micro-organism which can cause contact transmission problems. This study found that staphylococcus was present commonly on the surfaces of most of the hearing aids. Hence, when collecting hearing aids from patients’ gloves should be worn. Use of protective gear like masks, gowns, glasses is required when splash or splatter of potential infectious material is involved. For example, while removing cerumen by irrigation, masks are important which provide barrier for trans missive