With the continuous development of medical technology, ambulatory surgery or day surgery is becoming a new and very efficient medical service model in China. However, infection prevention and control in ambulatory surgery center has not yet attracted the attention of infection control practitioners. This paper analyzes the necessity, status quo, and entry point of infection prevention and control work in ambulatory surgery centers. Recommendations in the field of risk assessment, engineering control, behavior management, surveillance, and antimicrobial stewardship are provided to infection control practitioners as well.
Healthcare-associated infection outbreaks are a serious threat to patient safety and often cause serious consequences. The use of genotyping methods to identify the source of infection and the route of transmission in outbreaks is a critical point in controlling outbreaks. Recently, the use of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) makes it faster and much more accurate. Compared with traditional methods, WGS can distinguish highly correlated pathogen lineages, track infection source accurately and help researchers understanding the propagation dynamics model, and even provide more target intervention information. The application of WGS technology in healthcare-associated infection outbreak investigation and control is reviewed in this paper, and its advantages and challenges are also evaluated.
After more than 30 years of localized development of infection prevention and control in China, a prevention and control system in line with China’s conditions has been established. Since the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic began, with the unprecedented attention paid to healthcare associated infection by health administrative departments at all levels, the awareness of infection prevention and control of various personnel has been continuously strengthened, which has promoted the cross-integration and development of infection prevention and control-related disciplines. However, under the normalized pandemic prevention and control, infection prevention and control work also faces enormous pressure and challenges. This paper summarizes the opportunities for infection prevention and control in the new era, analyzes the current challenges in the field of infection prevention and control, and aims to provide some ideas for the future development of infection prevention and control.
There is a worldwide consensus that urgent action is needed to prevent and control multi-drug resistant organisms in health care settings, especially carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) and carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (CRPsA). In 2017, to focus on this topic, World Health Organization organized experts worldwide to develop guidelines for the prevention and control of CRE, CRPsA and CRAB. In this paper, we introduced the background, development process, main measures, advantages and disadvantages of the guidelines to help infection prevention and control practitioners take actions properly based on the guidelines.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is one of the important pathogens of healthcare-associated infections. In order to prevent and control the transmission of the drug-resistant organism in healthcare facilities, the Healthcare Infection Society and the Infection Prevention Society jointly conducted the guidelines for the prevention and control of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in 2021. This article introduces the guide from the background, preparation process, main prevention and control measures and further studies, and compares the guidelines with the current prevention and control measures in China, so as to provide a methodological reference for preparation of the guide for domestic infection prevention and control practitioners, and provide evidence-based prevention and control strategies for clinical practice.
Healthcare-associated infections pose a significant challenge to healthcare institutions, severely threatening healthcare quality and patient safety. To enhance the quality of infection prevention and control across healthcare facilities at all levels, promote standardization, and drive continuous quality improvement, quality control centers for infection prevention and control have been established nationwide and have played a crucial role. This article conducts an in-depth analysis of the functions, current development status, and key challenges faced by these quality control centers throughout their evolution, aiming to provide insights for future advancements in quality control systems.
Healthcare-associated infection management has advanced rapidly in recent years. With the development of more standards and guidelines, infection control measures become more standardized and evidence-based. Evidence-based measures are increasingly applied in infection control, which promote more studies on the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections. Furthermore, more new ideas of infection control have emerged, with old ones being challenged. The hand hygiene reform, multidrug-resistant organisms, and surgical site infections become the hot topics in recent years. In addition, whole-genome sequencing also provides more bases for understanding pathogen transmission in hospitals. Based on the high-quality studies published in recent years, this opinion review discusses these hot topics in the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections.
ObjectiveTo analyze the epidemic characteristics of the notifiable infectious diseases in West China Hospital of Sichuan University, so as to guide the prevention, control and treatment of notifiable infectious diseases in the hospital and other medical institutions. MethodsDescriptive analysis was used to make statistics and analysis on the data of notifiable infectious diseases in West China Hospital of Sichuan University from 2015 to 2020, and the reporting situation, disease classification and transmission route were summarized. ResultsA total of 21 382 cases of notifiable infectious diseases with 32 types were reported. There was no class A infectious disease reported. There were 16 305 cases (76.26%) of class B infectious diseases and 5 077 cases (23.74%) of class C infectious diseases. The top 5 infectious diseases were pulmonary tuberculosis, influenza, syphilis, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (including human immunodeficiency virus infection), and viral hepatitis type B. From the trend of the infectious disease reporting, the number of notifiable infectious diseases showed an upward trend from 2015 to 2020. ConclusionsThe report of notifiable infectious diseases in West China Hospital of Sichuan University from 2015 to 2020 mainly focuses on class B infectious diseases and class C infectious diseases. In the future, the prevention and control of infectious diseases should focus on respiratory infectious diseases, blood borne and sexually transmitted infectious diseases.
In recent years, the prevalence of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) has been remarkably increasing. Infections caused by CRE have significantly increased the burden on patients both medically and economically, and the CRE often leads to outbreaks of healthcare-associated infections. It has now become a global public health concern. Consequently, international organizations and academic societies/associations, including the World Health Organization, have developed corresponding prevention and control guidelines. This article provides a detailed introduction to the background, principles, key understandings, and implementation recommendations of China’s Standard for Prevention and Control of Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (WS/T 826－2023). The aim is to enhance the recognition of healthcare workers and medical administrators to prevent and control CRE and to provide detailed technical guidance for healthcare facilities in responding to the spread of CRE, thus ensuring medical quality and patient safety.
Objective To evaluate the efficiency of prevention and control strategies of carbapenem-resistant organism (CRO) in medical institutions in China using meta-analysis method. Methods PubMed, Embase, Medline (Ovid), Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chongqing VIP and Wanfang Database were systematically searched for studies on CRO prevention and control in Chinese medical institutions from the establishment of databases to 2023 for meta-analysis. Results A total of 21 studies were included, consisting of 3 randomized controlled studies and 18 non-randomized controlled studies. The meta-analysis results showed that compared with standard prevention and control measures, strengthened intervention measures (including active screening, information-based transparent supervision mode, comprehensive intervention, and bundled prevention and control strategies) could effectively reduce the CRO infection rate [relative risk (RR)=0.40, 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.25, 0.65), P<0.05]. Proactive screening could effectively reduce the CRO infection rate [RR=0.52, 95%CI (0.30, 0.91), P<0.05] and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infection rate [RR=0.47, 95%CI (0.24, 0.93), P<0.05]. Information-based transparent supervision could reduce the CRE infection rate by improving compliance with standard prevention and control measures [RR=0.42, 95%CI (0.28, 0.62), P<0.05]. Conclusions Compared with standard prevention and control measures, strengthened intervention measures can effectively reduce the risk of in-hospital transmission and infection of CRO. In clinical practice, bundled comprehensive intervention can be combined with information-based transparent supervision, and if necessary, proactive screening of CRO in high-risk populations should be carried out.