Infection control is the discipline concerned with preventing nosocomial or healthcare-associated infection, a practical (rather than academic) sub-discipline of epidemiology. It is an essential, though often underrecognized and undersupported, part of the infrastructure of health care. Infection control and hospital epidemiology are akin to public health practice, practiced within the confines of a particular health-care delivery system rather than directed at society as a whole.
Infection control addresses factors related to the spread of infections within the health-care setting (whether patient-to-patient, from patients to staff and from staff to patients, or among-staff), including prevention (via hand hygiene/hand washing, cleaning/disinfection/sterilization, vaccination, surveillance), monitoring/investigation of demonstrated or suspected spread of infection within a particular health-care setting (surveillance and outbreak investigation), and management (interruption of outbreaks). It is on this basis that the common title being adopted within health care is "Infection Prevention & Control."
Read more about Infection Control: Infection Control in Healthcare Facilities, Vaccination of Health Care Workers, Post Exposure Prophylaxis, Surveillance For Emerging Infections, Isolation, Outbreak Investigation, Training in Infection Control and Health Care Epidemiology
Famous quotes containing the words infection and/or control:
“No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.”
—Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974)
“To try to control a nine-month-old’s clinginess by forcing him away is a mistake, because it counteracts a normal part of the child’s development. To think that the child is clinging to you because he is spoiled is nonsense. Clinginess is not a discipline issue, at least not in the sense of correcting a wrongdoing.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)