Infection control is a discipline that applies epidemiologic and scientific principles and statistical analysis to the prevention or reduction in rates of nosocomial infections. Effective infection prevention and control is central to providing high quality health care for patients and a safe working environment for those that work in healthcare settings.
Infection Prevention & Control is the responsibility of each employee; everyone plays a part in breaking the chain of infection. This can be achieved by making hand hygiene practice a key patient safety issue and utilizing standard precautions. Infection prevention and control is integral to clinical care and the way in which it is provided. We provide service for the prevention, surveillance, investigation and control of infection. This is achieved through staff and patient education, development of policies and guidelines, surveillance/ reporting, audit of infection control practices, research, implementation of national guidelines and performance improvement projects to eliminate hospital acquired infection.
We are passionate about reducing the incidence of hospital and facility acquired infections amongst patients and residents. Whatever we can do to affect improvements in patient care practices that can reduce cross infection, we are keen to role model and promote.

History of Infection Control
The scientific study of hospital or nosocomial cross-infection began during the first half of the 18th century, and from that time until the start of the ‘Bacteriological Era’ many of the most notable contributions originated in Scotland. However it was only 100 years later in 1858 that Florence Nightingale promoted the case for hospital reform. The real understanding of hospital infection followed upon the discoveries of Pasteur, Koch and Lister and the beginning of the ‘Bacteriological Era’. The close of the 19th century saw the triumphs of hospital reform and asepsis and seemed to herald the final victory over hospital cross-infection. However, the victory was short-lived. It was soon realized that infections occurred not only in obstetric and surgical patients, but in medical patients as well, and that air could also be a source of infection. Streptococcal, staphylococcal and then Gram-negative bacilli as a cause of hospital infection became a focus of attention, as did antibiotic-resistant organisms.

Healthcare-associated infection is preventable
HAIs are infections that patients get while receiving treatment for medical or surgical conditions, and many HAIs are preventable. Modern healthcare employs many types of invasive devices and procedures to treat patients and to help them recover. Infections can be associated with procedures (like surgery) and the devices used in medical procedures, such as catheters or ventilators. HAIs are important causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States and are associated with a substantial increase in health care costs each year. At any one time in the United States, 1 out of every 25 hospitalized patients is affected by an HAI. Any person working in or entering a healthcare facility is at risk. However, healthcare-associated infection is a potentially preventable adverse event rather than an unpredictable complication. It is possible to significantly reduce the rate of HAIs through effective infection prevention and control.

Infection prevention and control is everybody’s business
Understanding the modes of transmission of infectious organisms and knowing how and when to apply the basic principles of infection prevention and control is critical to the success of an infection control program. This responsibility applies to everybody working and visiting a healthcare facility, including administrators, staff, patients and carers.

Infection prevention and control programs
The introduction of infection control (IC) programs to monitor such infections did not occur until the mid-1950s, in response to a pandemic of hospital staphylococcal infections. Changes in the health care system have expanded the range of IPCP activities. These changes necessitate an increase in infection prevention and control resources in order to be effective in the current health care system and to maintain the essential IPCP components. The emergence of new infectious diseases such as MERS-CoV has emphasized the need for surge capacity in infection prevention and control as well as in other health care services.
Infection prevention and control programs are providing basic and continuing education to health care providers regarding principles of infection prevention and control to help prevent the transmission of emerging infectious diseases such as MERS-COV.
We are pleased to welcome you to Al-Mostaqbal Hospital’s Infection Control Department where our aim is to reduce the incidence of hospital acquired infections amongst patients. Whatever we can do to affect improvements in patient care practices that can reduce cross infection, we are keen to role model and promote.
This can be achieved by making hand hygiene practice a key patient safety issue and utilizing standard precautions. Infection prevention and control is integral to clinical care and the way in which it is provided. We provide service for the prevention, surveillance, investigation and control of infection. This is achieved through staff and patient education, development of policies and guidelines, surveillance/ reporting, audit of infection control practices, research, implementation of national guidelines and performance improvement projects to eliminate hospital acquired infection.

Infection control programs include:
• Comprehensive risk reduction strategies necessary to minimize the risk of HAIs to patients, staff and visitors.
• Reporting of HAI and surgical site infections.
• Organized surveillance and control activities.
• Education is an important tool in ensuring that health care personnel and visitors comply with IPCP policies.
• Compliance to use basic infection control techniques such as appropriate hand washing as the major factor for cross transmission in hospitals.
• Regular program evaluation and auditing of infection prevention and control measures with timely feedback for optimal improvement.
• Reporting of communicable diseases to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health for proper epidemiology protocols, monitoring, education and institution of proper and national control measures.
• Staff Immunization
• Annual staff’s respirator fit testing

1. ON-GOING LECTURES:
A) INFECTION CONTROL:

HAND HYGIENE
Handwashing with soap and water has been considered a measure of personal hygiene for centuries and has been generally embedded in religious and cultural habits. Nevertheless, the link between handwashing and the spread of disease was established only two centuries ago, although this can be considered as relatively early with respect to the discoveries of Pasteur and Lister that occurred decades later.
In the mid-1800s, studies by Ignaz Semmelweis in Vienna, Austria, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in Boston, USA, established that hospital-acquired diseases were transmitted via the hands of HCWs. In 1995 and 1996, the CDC/Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) in the USA recommended that either antimicrobial soap or a waterless antiseptic agent be used for cleansing hands upon leaving the rooms of patients with multidrug-resistant pathogens. More recently, the HICPAC guidelines issued in 2002 defined alcohol-based handrubbing, where available, as the standard of care for hand hygiene practices in health-care settings, whereas handwashing is reserved for particular situations only. Hands may easily become contaminated with infectious microorganisms, which can enter the body through a break in the skin or be transmitted to a susceptible host and cause infection. All personnel, physicians, nurses, technicians and others who are responsible for complying with the hand hygiene policy should lead by example and call observed infractions to the attention of any offenders.
Cleaning hands promptly and thoroughly between contacts and after contact with blood, body fluids, secretions and equipment or potentially contaminated surfaces is an important strategy for preventing healthcare associated infections.

INFECTION CONTROL PROGRAMS
I. STAFF ORIENTATION
Infection Control and Prevention Orientation is being rendered to new and old staffs.

II. HAND HYGIENE
III. PATIENT EDUCATION

Month of May- Hang Hygiene Month
Patient education about influenza and the vaccine is conducted during the month of October.
IV. STAFF EDUCATION

Staff’s personal protective equipment return demonstration.
V. FIT TESTING
Fit testing is conducted annually to ensure the right respirator size for each hospital staff.
VI. INFLUENZA VACCINATION
Each hospital staff is entitled to yearly influenza vaccination.
VII. MINISTRY OF HEALTH VISITATION

Ministry of Health KSA is visiting Al-Mostaqbal Hospital to ensure infection control and prevention compliance.
VIII. INFECTION CONTROL DEPARTMENT

Dr. Lorelina Salcedo
Infection Control Practitioner
Al-Mostaqbal Hospital


Gary Ann Jimenez
Infection Control Nurse
Al-Mostaqbal Hospital