How many infection control staff do we need in hospitals?
During a one-day workshop experienced infection control practitioners (ICPs) and medical microbiologists debated how much time was needed for the delivery of infection control activities in a model hospital. They agreed a standard of one full-time equivalent (FTE) ICP per 178 hospital beds and one FTE medical microbiologist per 806 hospital beds. This is 40% and 24% more than the usual standard, respectively. Now that official numbers of hospital beds have become an inadequate parameter for work delivered by hospitals, a new standard is proposed, with the number of admissions as the denominator. This is one FTE ICP per 5000 admissions and one medical microbiologist or epidemiologist per 25000 admissions.
van den Broek
P J
PJ
Department of Infectious Diseases, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands. p.j.van_den_broek@lumc.nl
Kluytmans
J A J W
JA
Ummels
L C
LC
Voss
A
A
Vandenbroucke-Grauls
C M J E
CM
D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016357:Infection Control Practitioners; D008829:Microbiology / Q000592:standards; D000078329:Workforce