Annual Report 2019
Department of Safety Management, Office of Infection Control and Prevention
Keiji Okinaka, Asako Hashimoto, Ayumi Komuro, Mari Hisano, Takuya Yamaguchi, Nobuo Mochizuki, Satoshi Saito, Shinichi Masuda
Introduction
The Office of Infection Control and Prevention was established in October 2016. The objective of our office is to promote the practice of hospital infection control in order to reduce transmission of communicable diseases among patients, healthcare workers, and visitors. Our office also promotes antimicrobial stewardship.
The Team and What We Do
Our missions are:
- Development of infection control policies and in-hospital guidelines
- Managing the surveillance system of healthcare associated with infections and drug resistant bacteria in order to prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases
- Maintenance of manuals regarding infection control and antimicrobial stewardship
- Inspecting and improving the quality of the hospital environment using ward rounds
- Inspecting and improving compliance with hand hygiene and other infection control measures using ward rounds
- Offering consulting services regarding infection control problems
- Preventing and managing needle stick injuries
- Vaccinations for staff with insufficient protective immunity
- Planning to provide employee education and educational campaigns for the purpose of promoting infection control and antimicrobial stewardship
- Planning conferences among regional hospitals to promote the improvement of infection control in each hospital
- Promoting antimicrobial stewardship
- Inspecting and promoting proper disposal of medical waste
Research activities
Ms. Hashimoto presented at the domestic annual meeting about the relationship between the consumption of alcohol-based hand sanitizer and the incidence density rate of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Future prospects
We will keep aiming to increase the hand hygiene and isolation precautions compliance rate in order to create safe patient care through appropriate infection control measures even in the COVID-19 era. We will also promote antimicrobial stewardship for the purpose of aiming for a low antimicrobial resistance rate and safe medical environment.