title: [The Role of the Microbiology Laboratory in Healthcare-Associated Infection Control].
abstract: Healthcare-associated infection control aims to protect patients and health care workers from infections. For successful control, it is important not to transmit pathogens and resistant bacteria as well as not to create new resistant bacteria. Preventing the transmission of pathogens and resistant bacteria involves the reliable implementation of preventative measures for specific pathways in response to the causative microorganism. Appropriate information from the microbiology laboratory promotes the thorough implementation of prevention measures. This laboratory also makes it possible to promptly understand data on infections for the whole hospital. Therefore, in addition to the normal reporting of results, surveillance reports of infectious agents, such as drug-resistant bacteria, acid-fast bacilli smear-positive patients, and influenza virus antigen-positive patients must be immediately reported to the infection control team (ICT), which is the unit responsible for infection control. In addition, it is important to provide information on the detection of resistant bacteria and antimicrobial susceptibility rates to clinical staff and promote the development of systems in which new resistant bacteria are not created.
authors.forename: Isao
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nishi
authors.forename: Yoh
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hidaka
mesh_terms: D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control