Transmission-based Precautions I: Contact, Enteric, and Droplets

Transmission-based precautions must be taken with patients known or suspected to be infected or colonized with organisms that pose a risk to others.

Contact precautions prevent infections from infected patients and their surroundings.

To protect the other patients, such individuals must be isolated and limit their movements outside.

Healthcare workers must also wear PPE before entering patients' rooms.

It is also highly advised not to share patient-care equipment with other patients without disinfection.

Enteric precautions must be initiated when a patient starts showing symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, like diarrhea or vomiting, until there is a confirmative diagnosis of a non-infectious cause.

Droplet precautions help to prevent infections transmitted through droplets of body fluids of an infected person. These are usually respiratory secretions but can also include droplets from other sources, such as projectile vomiting or severe diarrhea.

Droplet precautions, however, do not require special ventilation as the droplets are large and do not stay suspended in the air for long.