Exam category: Patient Care → Infection Control
Why it matters: Your hands and the equipment you share between patients can carry an infection from one patient to the next, so infection control protects your patients and you. The registry tests the chain of infection, standard precautions, and which transmission-based precautions each disease requires.
Every infection follows the same six-link chain, and infection control works by interrupting it. The most direct place to interrupt the chain is the mode of transmission, the step that carries the organism from its reservoir to the next host. Hand hygiene, PPE, sterile technique and the isolation categories each block that step in a specific way.
The chain of infection has six links, and stopping the organism at any one of them ends the chain. You do not have to interrupt all six.
The mode of transmission is the most important target for breaking the chain of infection. Hand hygiene and equipment disinfection both work by blocking that link, because hands and shared equipment are what actually carry the organism from one person to the next.
Immunization works differently. It targets the susceptible host link instead, by giving that person immunity before they are ever exposed.
Answer this to keep going. 12 more sections unlock below.
A technologist is immunized before ever being exposed to an organism. Which link in the chain of infection does that break?
Section 1 of 13. Answer the check to keep going.