UWRT 1101 Critical Thinking Essay: Hospital Acquired Infections There are a lot of hot topics in nursing. The one that particularly caught my eye was hospital acquired infections. Hospital acquired infections are caused by viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens. The most common types are bloodstream infection, pneumonia, urinary tract infection, and surgical site infection. For hospital acquired infections in general, you should take standard precautions to make sure things go smoothly. Standard precautions are washing your hands, making sure that, if entering the body in any way, the equipment is sterile, also you must be wearing gloves. Bloodstream infections, are infections that happen strictly in the blood. The most common occurring bloodstream infections are caused by catheters. A catheter is a flexible tube inserted through an opening into the bladder, to remove fluid. These infections can happen for a number of reasons but the most common are, not taking standard precautions. To determine whether or not a patient has a blood stream infection, blood has to be taken and a blood culture performed. A blood culture is a blood culture is a test to detect germs such as bacteria or fungi in the blood. ("Blood Culture." KidsHealth. Ed. Yamini Durani. The Nemours Foundation, 01 May 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.) The most common treatment for bloodstream infections is antimicrobial therapy, which is basically taking antibiotics.