Based on the national 2020 and 2022 versions of Accreditation Standards for Tertiary Hospital, the Hospitals Accreditation Office of the Sichuan Provincial Health Commission organized to develop Implementation Rules for the Accreditation Standards for Tertiary Comprehensive Hospitals in Sichuan Province (2023 Edition). In order to guide the evaluated hospitals to comprehensively understand and master the content of hospital infection prevention and control (IPC), this article interprets the main evaluation points and scoring methods of hospital infection management in the detailed rules, emphasizes on organizational management, system implementation, monitoring/supervision, and connotation improvement for IPC. The purpose is to make the evaluated hospitals attach importance to the standardized implementation of daily work of IPC, focus on the routine, objective, and quantitative approach to accreditation work, and continuously achieve the effect of quality improvement in IPC.
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.
Running an infection control regular meeting is an effective way to develop and improve the communication between the infection control team and clinical units. This paper introduces the infection control regular monthly meeting which is held in the last week of each month in a newly-opened branch hospital of a university teaching hospital in China. Through collecting the issues for discussion beforehand, feeding back the surveillance data of last month including nosocomial infection, hand hygiene, multidrug-resistant organisms, occupational exposure, and medical waste, discussing the current infection control issues from each ward and trying to solve them together, and delivering and sharing new knowledge, skills, and information in terms of infection control, the monthly meeting achieves remarkable successes in the aspects of promoting the hospital infection control-related cultural construction, enhancing the supervision and implementation of infection control measures, and running new projects on hospital infection management, etc. Infection control regular monthly meeting builds up a study and work platform, promotes the multidisciplinary and multi-department communication and collaboration, and improves the quality of infection control eventually.
Objective To construct a multi-dimensional risk assessment system and scale for the prevention and control risk of respiratory infectious diseases in general hospitals, and make evaluation and early warning. Methods Through the collection of relevant literature on the prevention and control of respiratory infectious diseases during the period from January 1st, 2020 to December 31st, 2022, the articles related to the risk assessment of respiratory infectious diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, COVID-19 and influenza A (H1N1) were screened, and the Delphi method was used to evaluate the articles and establish an indicator system. The normalized weight and combined weight of each item were calculated by analytic hierarchy process. The technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution method was used to calculate the risk composite index of 38 clinical departments in a tertiary general hospital in Jiangxi Province in December 2022. Results A total of 16 experts were included, including 4 with senior titles, 8 with associate senior titles, and 4 with intermediate titles. After two rounds of Delphi consult, a total of 4 first-level indicators, 11 second-level indicators, and 38 third-level indicators of risk assessment for the prevention and control of respiratory infectious diseases were determined. The reliability and validity of the scale were good. The top three items with the largest combined weights in the scale were spread by aerosol, spread by respiratory droplet, and commonly used instruments (inspection instruments and monitoring equipment). After a comprehensive analysis on the 38 departments, the top 10 departments in the risk index were the departments of medical imaging, pediatrics, ultrasound, cardiac and vascular surgery, infection, emergency, respiratory and critical care, general medicine, otolaryngology and neck surgery, stomatology, and obstetrics. Conclusions This study constructed the risk assessment scale of respiratory infectious diseases in general hospitals, and the scale has good reliability and validity. The use of this scale for risk assessment of general hospitals can provide a theoretical basis for the risk characteristics of prevention and control of respiratory infectious diseases in general hospitals.
Currently, there is a lack of guidelines and consensuses on hospital infection prevention and control for continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) at home and aboard. Given that in-hospital infection control for CRRT differs from that for intermittent hemodialysis, the Nephrology Brunch of Sichuan International Medical Exchange & Promotion Association, in collaboration with West China Hospital of Sichuan University, has established an expert consensus group for CRRT hospital infection prevention and control. The group conducted systematic retrieval, data analysis, and expert consultation on the thematic content, and developed five topics: occupational protection for CRRT healthcare personnel, CRRT catheter-related infections, collection of CRRT blood/waste specimens, disinfection of CRRT machines, and utilization and disposal of CRRT consumables and waste. The aim is to standardize clinical practices, prevent nosocomial infections, and enhance awareness among healthcare personnel regarding infection prevention and control in CRRT settings.
Wuhan Leishenshan Hospital was built within 12 days during the key period of fighting against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan. It was a field infectious disease hospital with 1500 beds. Due to the emergency of the epidemic situation, the operation mode of “parallel of construction, acceptance, training and treatment” was employed. During the peak period, nearly 3000 medical workers and 13000 builders worked on the same site. In 67 days, 2 011 patients with COVID-19 were treated. Through the bundle infection prevention and control (IPC) measures, Wuhan Leishenshan Hospital achieved zero infection, zero accident, and low level pollution of SARS-CoV-2 (0.3%) by environment monitoring. The bundle IPC measures of Leishenshan Hospital not only provided prevention and control experience for other field infectious disease hospitals at domestic and abroad during the period of COVID-19, but also put forward ideas and work flow for other medical institutions to deal with emerging infectious diseases.
Objective To investigate the current status of occupational environment support, occupational satisfaction, and job competence of hospital infection prevention and control personnel, and to explore the mediating effect of occupational satisfaction on the relationship between occupational environment support and job competence, in order to provide reference and guidance for effectively improving the job competence of hospital infection prevention and control personnel. Methods A survey questionnaire was distributed to various levels and types of medical institutions in Shanghai through the platform of the Shanghai Hospital Infection Quality Control Center. The questionnaire included the Occupational Environment Support Scale, Occupational Satisfaction Scale, and Job Competency Assessment Scale. The mediating effect of occupational satisfaction on the relationship between occupational environment support and job competency of hospital infection prevention and control personnel was analyzed. Results A total of 1027 hospital infection prevention and control personnel from 728 medical institutions participated in this survey, with 989 valid questionnaires and an effective response rate of 96.3%. There were statistically significant differences in the job competency scores of hospital infection prevention and control personnel based on gender, years of experience in infection control work, professional background, highest education level, professional title, job nature, type of medical institution, and annual income (P<0.05). The total score of job competence for hospital infection prevention and control personnel was 301.0 (267.5, 326.0), the total score of occupational environment support was 21.44±3.66, and the total score of occupational satisfaction was 19.25±2.78. The occupational environment support of hospital infection prevention and control personnel was positively correlated with occupational satisfaction and job competence (r=0.373, 0.339; P<0.001), and occupational satisfaction was positively correlated with occupational environment support (r=0.547, P<0.001). The mediating effect of job satisfaction on the occupational environment support and job competence was 0.085, accounting for 22.8% of the total effect. Conclusion Occupational satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between occupational environment support and job competence, and the mediating effect is significant.
When a clustered coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic occurs, how to prevent and control hospital infection is a challenge faced by each medical institution. Under the normalization situation, building an effective prevention and control system is the premise and foundation for medical institutions to effectively prevent and control infection when dealing with clustered epidemics. According to the principles of control theory, medical institutions should quickly switch to an emergency state, and effectively deal with the external and internal infection risks brought by clustered epidemics by strengthening source control measures, engineering control measures, management control measures and personal protection measures. This article summarizes the experience of handling clustered outbreaks in medical institutions in the prevention and control of coronavirus disease 2019, and aims to provide a reference for medical institutions to take effective prevention and control measures when dealing with clustered outbreaks.
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 understand the influence of organisational support and professional identity of hospital infection prevention and control (HIPC) practitioner in public hospitals. Methods HIPC practitioner of the public medical institutions secondary level and above in Neijiang City, Sichuan Province were used as the research object. A questionnaire survey was used to analyze their organizational support and professional identity in May 2022, to compare the differences in organizational support and professional identity among HIPC practitioner with different positions, working ages, and majors, and analyze the correlation between organizational support and professional identity among HIPC practitioner. Results A total of 90 valid questionnaires were retrieved from investigation. The average scores for organizational support and professional identity among HIPC practitioner were (3.409±0.625) and (2.518±0.504) points. Among them, the organizational support of intermediate professional title personnel [(3.155±0.785) points], personnel with 5-10 years of service [(3.071±0.696) points], and clinical physicians [(3.342±0.860) points] were the lowest; the professional identity of personnel with intermediate professional titles [(2.357±0.477) points], those with more than 10 years of service[(2.431±0.454) points], and other professionals [(2.471±0.260) points] were the lowest. The Pearson correlation analysis results showed that there was a positive correlation between organizational support and professional identity (r=0.490, P<0.05), self-identity and work support (r=0.364, P<0.05), and environmental identity and relationship interests (r=0.698, P<0.05). Conclusions Due to the low level of organizational support, there is a decrease in professional identity and significant job burnout, which in turn leads to an increase in the turnover rate of infection control professionals. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the sense of organizational support for specialized personnel in infection control to promote their professional identity and stabilize the infection control team. Suggest providing necessary support at the organizational level and self-improvement at the individual level.