Developing your approach to infection prevention

I spent some more time recently thinking about horizontal strategies for infection prevention in preparation for an upcoming talk. The slide below compares and contrasts the differences between vertical and horizontal approaches.

	Vertical	Horizontal
Goal	Reduce infection or colonization due to specific pathogen(s) [pathogen-based]	Reduce all infections [population-based]
Application	Selective or universal	Generally universal
Interventions	Unipotent Application of a technology	Multipotent Modification of HCW behavior
Resource utilization	Typically high	Lower
Philosophy	Exceptionalism (some organisms are more important than others)	Utilitarianism
Values favored	Hospital	Patient
Temporal orientation/ perspective	Present / short-term	Present & future / long-term
Examples	MDRO ADI Mandating influenza vaccine for HCWs	Hand hygiene Bare below the elbows Chlorhexidine bathing Care bundles Reducing presenteeism

By the way, this talk is part of a virtual conference on February 15-16 sponsored by Infection Control Today. You can register for free here.

Compehensive Infection Control Campaign (video)

"The Blues ain't about making yourself feel better, it's about making other people feel worse." - Bleeding Gums Murphy to Lisa Simpson

I was, as we used to say, 'surfing the web' looking for implementation ideas for infection control interventions, particularly hand hygiene, when I stumbled on this video.  I really like this campaign from University College London Hospitals and especially liked the lenticular buttons and posters. "Give Bugs Hell. Use the Gel" and "1 in 3 of us carry bacteria that can kill" were effective I think, as was the Blues.

I found it interesting that Chairman, Sir Peter Dixon was worried that "there was a risk to doing this" campaign since it might suggest they have an active problem with HAIs at the UCLH rather than the truth that they were "launching this because they wanted to stay on top of this."  That sums up infection prevention and public health in a nutshell I think.  I'm impressed with his comments and UCLH's campaign.

Happy International Infection Prevention Week (Oct 17-23)

October has been a busy month. I hope you all have recovered from World MRSA Day and Global Handwashing Day. I haven't, but I still wanted to remind you all to celebrate International Infection Prevention Week in style.  I also wanted to give you all a hug. One of those hugs where we kinda hug the air and don't actually touch each other. Touching wouldn't be very infection preventiony now would it.