Capacity Building and Work System Development for Disinfection and Sterilization in a Primary Care Network, Phayao Province

Abstract

Sterilization is important for medical and health care. According to the supervision of Department of Primary Care Network Development at health promotion hospitals in Phayao province, various problems about working system for disinfection and sterilization were found, particularly among primary care facilities in the province. Such problems indicated the need to improve disinfection and sterilization in the network of health promoting hospitals. The ojective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of capacity development process for personnel and working system for disinfection and sterilization in the health promotion hospital network. It was conducted during the period from the years 2012-2015, with the involvement of nurses who were responsible for infection control (IC), and the personnel working in disinfection and sterilization in 22 health promoting hospitals. The activities included training of the participants, implementation of disinfection and sterilization procedures based on the protocol of Phayao hospital, and practices of health hygiene. Data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and Paired t-test. It was found that the trained personnel were aboe to improve their knowledge, with the range of mean and SD of 84.23±1.71 to 86.34±1.91. The working system for disinfection and sterilization passed standard criteria in 90.45% of the health promotion hospitals; and all hospitals passed thr spore test. For the patients who were referred back to health promotion hospitals for wound care in 2015, 99.53% of them had no infection. Additional achievement were the innovations of disposable home based wound dressing sets and the surgical scissors packing “nice and safe packing by our hands”. Recommendations from the study included annual refreshing training for personnel; formation of self-help group via working Manual and LINE communication; training of new staff at the Department of Central Sterile Supply before starting to work at health promoting hospitals; and the need to inform policy makers and administrators on the neccessity to support the infection control program. In addition, team work and network supervision should be promoted to create love, bonding and understanding of each other; and the outcomes would be the seamless services leading to sustainable and safe culture.