title: [Quality management for preventing healthcare-acquired infections. The importance of surveillance].
abstract: Healthcare acquired (nosocomial) infections are one of the most frequent complications of medical care. The management to prevent such nosocomial infections is a typical example of the use of the general principles of quality management in healthcare institutions: each institution should compare their own nosocomial infection rates for defined patient risk groups with reference data and identify problems concerning specific infection types or units/departments. This comparison should stimulate a careful analysis of the process of care and the options to improve the situation. Structured interventions, such as the introduction of bundles of infection control measures or checklists, are very helpful to increase compliance with infection control measures and to decrease nosocomial infection rates. However, often only interventions individually designed according to the specific needs in a particular unit/department are successful to improve infection rates. Therefore, the employment of experienced infection control personnel and surveillance strategies designed according to the specific needs of the institution are key elements of a good infection control management within healthcare institutions.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Hygiene und Umweltmedizin, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin und Nationales Referenzzentrum für die Surveillance von nosokomialen Infektionen, Hindenburgdamm 27, Berlin, Germany. Petra.Gastmeier@charite.de
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gastmeier
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Behnke
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Reichardt
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Geffers
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D017146:Models, Organizational; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000458:organization & administration*