User:Tlesher/Draft of Standard precautions

Standard precautions refer to safety measures taken to prevent exposure to infectious materials when providing care to a patient. The precautions assume that all body fluids, secretions, and excretions (other than sweat) are potentially infectious and must be treated as though they were.

Standard precautions unified and replaced the earlier universal precautions and body substance isolation standards in 1996, and were reaffirmed and updated in 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control to include guidelines on safe injection practices, respiratory hygiene, and cough etiquette.

The degree of implementation of standard precautions depends on the anticipated exposure to potential pathogens, and include hand washing, use of antibacterial agents, and the use of protective equipment from disposable gloves and masks to specialized equipment such as resuscitation masks and bag valve mask resuscitators.