Essay On Hospital Acquired Pneumonia

In this day and age, the general population assumes that when someone is hospitalized the risk for getting a new infection while in the hospital is minimal. However, in the United States the risk for gaining a hospital-associated infection has become a serious concern and a costly one at that. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that hospital-associated infections have cost an estimate of 35.7 to 45 billion dollars to United States hospital when 20% of these infections could have been preventable with the correct interventions. One of the most common hospital-associated infections has become hospital-acquired pneumonia. (Scott II, 2009) This type of pneumonia is easily preventable if healthcare workers would comply with a few simple

It is caused by the inhalation of organisms or irritants that move into the alveoli when the immune system is not strong enough to combat it. Once these organisms or irritants enter the lungs, they reach the alveoli where they begin to multiply. This multiplication of these organisms results in white blood cells traveling into the area subsequently causing local capillaries to become edematous, leaky, and to create exudate. The combination of this results in thickening of the alveolar wall due to fluid collection within and around the alveoli. Impaired gas exchange, which is the decrease in the amount of oxygen that is able to enter the lungs due to the fluid, also causes a decrease in the amount of oxygenated blood moving throughout the body. Pneumonia is usually first recognized by the signs and symptoms of shortness of breath, coughing, thick sputum, chest pain, fatigue, fever, and headache. Pneumonia can occur lobar meaning that it can occur in one segment or one entire lobe of the lung creating consolidation in that lobe. (Ignatavicius & Workman, pp.