What’s New in Infection Control
As a regulated profession, nurses strive to ensure their patients have up-to-date knowledge; not only to protect them, but also help them to make informed decisions based on the latest education and best practices available. Although Nursing Foot Care is currently not regulated, the CAFCN is trying their best to make our voices heard and a mandate is sure to come sooner rather than later. This Mandate that all Foot Care Nurses use the same process and educational guidelines, will enable patients to make informed decisions based on the fact that all Foot Care Providers follow the same practices and have been equally educated under the same curriculum. In recent months several of the TiredSole™ Team attended an Education Session in London, Ontario. During this educational conference we learned what the Ministry of Health expects of Foot Care nurses when providing community care in the field of Advanced Diabetic Foot Care.It was surprising to find out that many providers find the measures we should take to protect the vulnerable sector against infection or even worse, amputations. Rest assured that TiredSole™will always go above and beyond these measures to ensure our clients safety and comfort, just as we always have since we opened our doors almost 5 years ago. As the Ministry and our governing body (CNO) develops a checklist of best practices, be assured that TiredSole™ will always work diligently to be one step ahead in the prevention of infection.
PREVENTION IS KEY
Autoclave machines
TiredSole™ has 2 Autoclave machines to keep up with the demands of sterilizing our foot care instruments. It is a process which takes time and requires expenses but a process we do not take lightly. We will now be elevating our game once more, to stay ahead of what is expected of our industry. We have decided to add an additional step to our protocol for Infection Control documentation which will ensure we can track each set of sterilized foot care tools by batch numbers to a client’s care.
How we do it
Each TiredSole™ nurse is assigned a colour for their instruments for identification purposes. The instruments, once used, are cleaned ultrasonically before being placed into a sterile class 4 pouch. The pouch is then put into one of our autoclave machines for sterilization. The autoclave machines will have previously been tested with a fungal spore (BI) to ensure all is working correctly at the beginning of each day. Our class 4 bags have internal and external indicators as well as a class 5 chemical indicator to notify us if any load has failed. The autoclave machines provide a print out after each load indicating time and temperature, and another indicator within each load to confirm no breach has been noted for that cycle.
Increased Costs
A first in 5 years
It is amazing that TiredSole™, after only five years, now has over ten nurses and 2 autoclaves machines. As a consumer myself, I believe as the saying goes ” you get what you pay for”. I have attempted to absorb most of the additional costs as we have grown as a company and as a team and as our profession has developed National Standards for Infection Prevention and Control.. We are so very close to becoming regulated and I firmly agree with how CNO has deemed our tools as critical instruments. With these added developments and costs, as of September 2019 a price increase of $5 per visit will take effect. Should you decide you need to find another foot care provider due to this increase, please I suggest that you ask for documentation indicating how they reprocess their tools. This can ultimately spare you from obtaining an infection or amputation. New patients in our clinic who have experienced complications from receiving foot care with unsterilized instruments. Ask the questions! It’s your right to know.
We hope you will continue trusting your foot care services to TiredSole™ and thank you for your trust is us thus far. If you have any questions regarding our new processes and fees, please contact us at your convenience. [email protected]
