Annual Report 2020
Department of Safety Management, Office of Infection Control and Prevention
Keiji Okinaka, Asako Hashimoto, Ayumi Komuro, Mari Hisano, Takuya Yamaguchi, Nobuo Mochizuki, Satoshi Saito, Yui Suzuki, Shinichi Masuda
Introduction
The Office of Infection Control and Prevention was established in October 2016. The objective of our office is to promote hospital infection control to reduce the transmission of communicable diseases among patients, healthcare workers, and visitors. Our office also promotes antimicrobial stewardship. This year, we focused on infection control for COVID-19.
The Team and What We Do
Our missions are:
- Developing infection control policies and in-hospital guidelines
- Managing the surveillance system of healthcare-associated infections and drug-resistant bacteria to prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases
- Maintaining 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 needlestick injuries
- Vaccinating staff with insufficient protective immunity
- Planning the provision of employee education and educational campaigns to promote 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 the proper disposal of medical waste
Research activities
Keiji Okinaka organized a symposium at the 64th annual meeting of the Japanese Society for Medical Mycology and won the Best Symposium Award. Keiji Okinaka participated in the study of environmental contamination by SARS-CoV-2 in Diamond Princess Cruise ship.
Future Prospects
We keep aiming to increase the hand hygiene and isolation precautions compliance rate for safe patient care through appropriate infection control measures even in the COVID-19 era. We also promote antimicrobial stewardship for a low antimicrobial resistance rate and a safe medical environment.