Preventing infections: Whose role is it and what are the key actions to take?

Based on the pre-pandemic data on healthcare associated infections (HAIs) from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1 in 31 hospital patients get infected with at least one HAI each day. However, when it comes to infection control and prevention, it is not just about the inpatient infection rate, but for the health and safety of all hospital staff and visitors as well.

In a typical hospital, there will be an infection control team (ICT) to monitor hospital infection rates, evaluate the infection control measures, and ensure the implementation of infection control guidelines. Members of the ICT are frequently challenged to meet expectations in lowering infection rates and achieve “zero harm”. However, is infection control and prevention solely the role of the ICT? The answer is obviously “no”, but who else has a part to play?

• Frontliners: Having the most interactions with patients, frontliners (e.g., nurses, patient service staff, administrative staff, etc.) have a huge role to play in in preventing HAIs. It is also for the sake of their own health and safety, as well as for their loved ones. Therefore, it is important for frontliners to take infection control practices seriously.
• Department heads and nursing management: Are leaders constantly reviewing and evaluating processes, ensuring that instructions are followed, listening to feedback, and taking initiatives to better protect staff?
• Environmental services (EVS) and facility management (FM) teams: These teams play a crucial role in ensuring that the healthcare environment is kept clean. It is also important that they keep themselves updated of any new solutions to improve the environment.
• Procurement / materials management department (MMD): Has priorities been set and are essential materials procured in a prompt manner?
• Hospital executive management: How much effort is there to ensure that the hospital delivers the highest quality of care, while taking care of the employees? Are the right culture and values being set and cultivated, such that staff across different departments can work together towards a common goal? Is the management team open to change and new solutions??
• Everyone else: It is individual responsibility to take own precautions, pay attention to surroundings, and provide any constructive feedback, if possible.

“Infection control and prevention should be a shared responsibility and accountability.”

What are some actions that the different stakeholders can take? Refer to a general guideline below.

Step 1: Awareness

If there is a problem to solve, the first step of all is to be aware of and acknowledge the problem. Is there enough awareness about the infection control guidelines requirements, infection rates and trends, infection control measures set by the hospital, current healthcare environment, solutions, etc.? It is also up to individuals to put in the additional effort and see what can be done better.

Step 2: Communication

After recognizing a problem, one should take the initiative to raise the concerns to other relevant stakeholders, have the proactiveness to follow up and make sure that the problem is solved.

Step 3: Coalition

When a problem is raised, is there teamwork to look into matter together? How open is everyone in supporting change, if necessary? Infection control and prevention should be prioritized and there should be a sense of urgency from various stakeholders to solve the problem.

In summary, it is a joint effort to control and prevent infections. You may also read more about the strategies for preventing healthcare associated infections (cdc.gov) or our previous article on lessons learnt from the pandemic.

P.S. Subscribe to our?newsletter?and follow our?page?for more insights!