Infectious Disease Prevention

When you come to a Southcoast Health location for infectious disease prevention, you will be treated by an infectious disease specialist, such as an epidemiologist, and a registered nurse.

Our process for disease control includes:

• Standard precautions: These are the minimum infection prevention measures that apply to all areas of patient care, including hand washing, covering your cough, safe injection practices, and the use of gloves, masks and gowns.
• Transmission-based precautions: These are measures above and beyond standard precautions that apply to people with known or suspected highly contagious diseases.
• Education and training: This is an ongoing process of making sure all health care facility staff are competent in infection control practices.
• Surveillance and reporting: Monitoring for outbreaks and areas for improvement, and reporting necessary data to local, state and federal agencies is critical to controlling existing outbreaks and preventing their spread to other areas.

While most of infectious disease control is done behind the scenes, patients and family members can do their part to prevent disease from spreading. Doing simple things like washing your hands or covering your cough can help stop a disease from circulating around the hospital. In addition, don’t be shy about protecting your own health by reminding family, friends and even health care providers to wash or sanitize their hands.