Health-care associated infection surveillance

Hundreds of millions of patients around the world are affected by health care-associated infections (HAI). Every day, HAI results in prolonged hospital stays, long-term disability, increased resistance of microorganisms to antimicrobials, massive additional costs for health systems, emotional and personal burden for patients and their family, and unnecessary deaths. To prevent HAI, it is important to identify their causes, understand how big the problem is, and evaluate whether interventions to reduce HAI are successful.

Learning Objectives:

Course contents

Part 1:
This first module on HAI surveillance will cover basic definitions, the epidemiology of HAI, and the steps for conducting surveillance.

Part 2:
In the previous section, you learned about the first phase of surveillance: planning. In this module you will learn about the next few steps, namely data collection, analysis and interpretation.

Part 3:
In this last part of the Health-Care Associated Infection (HAI) Surveillance module we will cover the remaining steps of conducting surveillance: communication, feedback and evaluation. You will learn how to prepare reports for different audiences and be able to identify who should know what information.

HAI surveillance systems should have a built-in, regular process for evaluation of their management, efficiency and impact. This process should include evaluation of whether interventions are successful and the surveillance programme itself needs any adjustments.