Day 6: Hospital Highlight - Inpatient Infection Control

Back in Saigon, the 7G team got the opportunity to tour the University Medical Center. As one of the largest hospital in the city, the medical center had four different rotations: (1) inpatient infection control; (2) cardiac surgery; (3) outpatient services; and (4) general surgery. Over the course of the four days at the medical center, the team got the opportunity to see medical and technical aspects behind the medical center. Each day highlighted a different aspect of the hospital rotations.

As a part of the hospital rotation program, the 7G team had to dress up in business casual in order to demonstrate professionalism.

The 7G team are ready to go! Over the course of 4 days, they would be able to see 4 different aspects of the hospital.

Nick raises his hand for the lunch orders. After the hospital, the 7G team made their way to the shopping center for lunch.

The University Medical Center located in Saigon, Vietnam. 

As we walked into the medical center, the 7G team soon realize that the health care system here is different from the health care system in the United States. One observation was the crowdedness of the waiting area.

The patients had to wait in line before getting medical attention.

As a part of the hospital rotations program, we learned more about the University Medical Center through a presentation.

The 7G team learn about the medical center from its representatives.

First, the 7G team learned some background information behind the medical center with an introduction presentation. Opened in 1994, the University Medical Center has 5 branches with 760 beds. At the center, the hospital team consists of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, administrations, technicians, and midwives - a total of 2353 staff members. For outpatient, the center sees about 5914 patients a day, while for inpatient, the center sees about 194 patients a day. For operations, there around 93 cases a day. The medical center has medical imaging technology as well as minimally invasive surgical training center. For laparoscopic surgery, they have an international program, where they have taught this branch of surgery to countries like Pakistan, Philippines, and Malaysia. They also have cardiovascular surgery and other branches of surgery. They have an international partnership with Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore. We, M.E.M.O., have personal ties with the medical center because they are the recipient of our "Transfer of Technology" program. There are over 10 million people in Saigon, and there are 20 general hospitals - not including the private clinics.

After the presentation, with the help of Anh Phúc, the director of the medical center programs, we split off into smaller groups to start the four-day hospital rotation program. For today, this blog entry highlights the inpatient infection control. In this rotation, we learned about the technical aspect behind the hospital's need for sterilization of medical tools and supplies. We visited different parts of the infection control department, as we went to the linen closet, sterilization room, and infection control office. 

At the linen closet, 7G goers observe the amount of medical supplies that they have to sterilize for the whole hospital.

The linens for the patients must be clean before handing it out to patient use.

Outside the hospital, we also see where all of the dirty linens go, as they are transferred the hospital to the company that sterilizes them.

The mechanical sterile machine takes care of small amounts of linen sterilization as needed. 

As a way to sterilize the linens, they use high temperature and pressure to sterilize.

(From left to right), David, Nick, Amanda, Christina, Ngan, Natalie, Anh Vi, and Kieu are with the infection control bioengineers in the infection control office. They learned about the different ways that they test out the level of infection in a patient as well as prevention.

As a way to present the information, the infection control department has an annual poster competition at the hospital. The competition seeks to find the poster that demonstrates the importance of infection prevention as well as creativity. Here is one of the entries.

Another poster entry for the competition. This is my personal favorite.

Another poster entry for the competition.

Another poster entry for the competition. 

Another poster entry for the competition.

We learned about how inpatient infection control runs. At the central sterilization department, they oversee that all medical tools and linens are sterilized before given for patient use. The first step in health is the prevention of any infections that may result post surgery as well as the containment of an infection. Over the course of one day alone, they have a total of 1000-2000 kg of dirty linen that they must sterilize. The hospital staff must fill out forms and keep track of medical supply handling. They must use hand sanitizer before and after dealing with a patient. Moreover, we talked with biotech engineers about how they take patient's sample and test it for the level of bacteria. They would wipe off the top of the stomach or organ of interest and test the bacterial level using the pH scale. If there is a significant amount of bacteria, it is the biotech engineer's job to change the chemicals to be more efficient in bacterial containment and resistance. 

In addition, we learned about their annual contest, where the hospital staff compete to have the best poster that demonstrates the proper care of washing hands. There are two rounds as well to test the hospital staff: (1) a multiple choice test about infection control and hand sanitizing; and (2) a jeopardy round to test their knowledge even further.

From this rotation, we learned about the unsung heroes of the hospital who make sure that the center itself is clean and sterile for patient care. The infection control department play a significant role here at the medical center. Overall, there is more to any hospital than the doctors and nurses who direct care for the patient. All hospital staff are essential to making that everything runs smoothly and efficiently.

Written by Johnson. All photos were taken by David.