title: How many infection control staff do we need in hospitals?
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands. p.j.van_den_broek@lumc.nl
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: van den Broek
authors.forename: J A J W
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Kluytmans
authors.forename: L C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Ummels
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Voss
authors.forename: C M J E
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Vandenbroucke-Grauls
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016357:Infection Control Practitioners; D008829:Microbiology / Q000592:standards; D000078329:Workforce