Chapter 5: Infectious Disease Control for Funeral Professionals 4 CE Hours
By: Staff Writers Learning objectives
● Describe five CDC universal precautions for infection prevention and control for airborne, droplet, and contact transmission of pathogens. ● List five steps for personal protective equipment (PPE) compliance from the CDC guidelines for infection prevention and control procedures in the funeral home setting. Explain how pathogenic organisms may be spread in funeral home settings and identify factors that influence exposure and transmission. ● Identify five types of infectious disease that require the use of barriers, personal protective equipment, and control strategies to protect personnel from pathogens according to CDC and WHO guidelines. ● Define epidemiologically important organisms and discuss four types, including modes of transmission. ● List and discuss OSHA guidelines and strategies, including cleaning, sterilization, chemical disinfection, and barriers to protect personnel and the public from infectious disease. Implicit bias in healthcare Implicit bias significantly affects how healthcare professionals perceive and make treatment decisions, ultimately resulting in disparities in health outcomes. These biases, often unconscious and unintentional, can shape behavior and produce differences in medical care along various lines, including race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, and socioeconomic status. Healthcare disparities stemming from implicit bias can manifest in several ways. For example, a healthcare provider might unconsciously give less attention to a patient or make assumptions about their medical needs based on race, gender, or age. The unconscious assumptions can lead to delayed or inadequate care, misdiagnoses, or inappropriate treatments, all of which can adversely impact health outcomes. Addressing Introduction Funeral directors in the 1980s faced new concerns related to containment of infectious disease pathogens due to the number of casualties from the HIV/AIDs virus. Funeral directors and staff were asked to deliver postmortem services for premature deaths of HIV/AIDS victims of all ages. In addition to assisting grieving families, funeral service professionals had to address serious health risks and fears surrounding embalming, funeral services, and burial of victims with the contagious disease. The demand for infection control for postmortem care of HIV/AIDS victims resulted in a detailed review and modernization of procedures for the first time in more than a century. Misinformation, fear, and hysteria led to myths of environmental contamination, which spread throughout the funeral industry. Many directors and embalmers refused to offer services to HIV/AIDS victims during this time. To address these concerns, the Centers for Disease Control (now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC, 1992]; CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) developed detailed, extensive, uniform procedures to contain infectious pathogens in the healthcare field. These precautions were extended and refined for the practice of mortuary science and all areas of funeral services. Guidelines created by the CDC, and adopted by OSHA in 1991, were called “universal precautions,” which provided standardized procedures for postmortem services. Robert Mayer, author of embalming
● Describe CDC guidelines for barriers, protective equipment, and control procedures for personnel to prevent exposure to infectious material during the embalming process. ● Define CDC and OSHA guidelines for handling, cleaning, disinfection, sterilization, and waste disposal procedures during postmortem procedures to prevent disease transmission. ● Discuss the professional funeral director and embalmer’s responsibility for maintaining a safe environment for personnel, the public, and the environment. ● Identify strategies and procedures for preventing transmission and controlling Ebola and HIV/AIDS virus during all postmortem procedures. ● Select five myths concerning infectious disease contamination from embalming and burial and discuss facts from PAHO and WHO research studies that dispel them. implicit bias in healthcare is crucial for achieving equity in medical treatment. Strategies to combat these biases involve education and awareness programs for healthcare professionals. These programs help individuals recognize and acknowledge their biases, fostering a more empathetic and unbiased approach to patient care. Additionally, implementing policies and procedures prioritizing equitable treatment for all patients can play a pivotal role in reducing healthcare disparities. Ultimately, confronting implicit bias in healthcare is essential to creating a more just and equitable healthcare system where everyone receives fair and equal treatment regardless of their background or characteristics. textbooks, explained that using universal precautions means an embalmer will “treat all human remains as if they were infected with HIV, hepatitis B (HBV) or other pathogens. In other words, the embalmers should treat all bodies with the same caution that would be applied for extremely hazardous, potentially fatal infections” (Mayer, 2012). Changes in handling the body were implemented, and different postmortem technologies in all levels of thought and practices were developed and deployed by the American funeral industry (Kennedy & Nisbett, 2015). New procedures for health, safety, and training for funeral personnel helped ease fears and build confidence surrounding postmortem care of victims of infectious disease. In 2014, mortuary science encountered the Ebola epidemic, leading to a complete transformation in postmortem care to protect personnel and the public from exposure to deadly pathogens. The CDC, OSHA, and the WHO revolutionized infection control and prevention procedures, from transport to and from the hospital to burial or cremation. Some myths have persisted concerning the potential environmental contamination related to the burial of victims of infectious, communicable diseases. Misinformation and anxiety grew due to public fear over media reports of the spread of prion diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known as mad cow disease; the human variant
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Book Code: FTX1624
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