What it means
An infection caught in a hospital, nursing home or other care setting. Common ones are catheter-associated urinary tract infections, central line bloodstream infections, surgical site infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia and C. difficilesee dif-uh-SEELClostridioides difficile, a spore-forming bacterium that can infect the colon (the large intestine).Full entry . Many are preventable with good hand hygiene, aseptic technique and removing lines and catheters as soon as they are not needed.
For the nurse
Clean your hands before and after every client contact, follow aseptic technique for lines and catheters, and ask every day whether each device is still needed.
At a glance
| Abbreviations | HAI |
|---|---|
| Spanish | infección asociada a la atención sanitaria |
| Also written | HAI, HAIs, healthcare-associated infections, health care-associated infection, health care-associated infections, health-care associated infection, hospital-acquired infection, hospital-acquired infections |
Related terms
hand hygiene
Cleaning the hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand rub.
medical asepsis
Clean technique: practices that lower the number of germs and stop them spreading from one person or object to another.
infection control
The policies and practices used in health care to prevent the spread of infection.
isolation precautions
Extra infection-control measures, added to standard precautions, for clients known or thought to have certain contagious infections.
standard precautions
The basic infection-control practices used with every client, whether or not an infection is known.