Isolation precautions at a glance

Choose the category from how the organism travels. Do not choose it from a diagnosis you half remember.

Contact

• Room — private room, or cohort with a patient carrying the same organism.
• What the nurse wears — gown and gloves, donned before entering and removed before leaving.
• Patient in transit — cover the infected or draining site; clean hands before transport.
• Equipment — dedicated to the room; anything shared is disinfected between patients.
• The one that catches people — a spore-forming diarrheal illness needs soap and running water for hands and a chlorine-based agent for surfaces. Alcohol rub does not work here.

Droplet

• Room — private room, door may remain open.
• What the nurse wears — surgical mask, put on before entering.
• Patient in transit — the patient wears a surgical mask.
• Equipment — standard cleaning is adequate.
• The one that catches people — droplets travel a short distance and fall. No negative pressure is required.

Airborne

• Room — airborne infection isolation room, negative pressure, door closed.
• What the nurse wears — a fit-tested respirator, seal-checked at every use.
• Patient in transit — the patient wears a surgical mask, never a respirator.
• Equipment — standard cleaning; the room air is the hazard, not the bed rail.
• The one that catches people — a susceptible staff member should not be assigned at all.

Standard precautions

Standard precautions apply to every patient, every time, regardless of diagnosis or suspected diagnosis. A transmission-based category never replaces them. It is added on top of them, and it comes off when the indication ends, leaving standard precautions still running.

Margin notetransmission-based sits on top of standard, never instead.

Watch outan airborne patient in a positive-pressure room is an immediate escalation, not a documentation issue. Move the patient.

Takeawaypick the category from how the organism travels.

Disease-by-disease assignment → BOOK 04 · P5 and → BOOK 04 · P6.