Infection Control and Body Substance Isolation

Infection Control and Body Substance Isolation (BSI)

1. The governing principle

So every call starts with the same assumption. Any blood, body fluid, secretion, or excretion you meet could be carrying a pathogen. That's the whole basis for standard precautions — treating body fluids as infectious before you know anything about the patient.

The Instructional Guidelines spell out the list: blood, body fluids, secretions, excretions, non-intact skin, and mucous membranes. Sweat is the one exclusion. Memorize that exception specifically. It's exactly the kind of detail the National Registry builds a question around — the list looks complete, and then there's one item that is not on it.

Standard precautions apply to all patients, in any setting. That's true no matter their suspected or confirmed infection status. You don't decide who gets precautions based on how the patient looks. You apply them to everyone, every time, and you scale them to the exposure you expect.

That's the working rule. Precautions are not one fixed bundle. You forecast the exposure, and you dress for it.