New Interventions Targeting Healthcare-Associated Infections

Abstract

Healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) are still a major cause of patient morbidity and mortality nowadays and there are evidences that these infections are highly preventable. Although many efforts have been made to prevent them, we live with a global burden of HCAIs and low- and middle-income countries reported HCAIs rates higher than in high-income countries accompanied by the problem of multidrug resistant microorganisms. Basic measures for infection control and prevention must be put into practice and new techniques and methodologies have to be incorporated into HCAI control programs. The purpose of this review is discuss new interventions targeting HCAIs such as the use of practice bundles, behavioral change strategies, public reporting of infection rates, environmental cleaning, hand hygiene, and antimicrobial stewardship programs. We emphasize that all preventive measures require adherence by healthcare workers that depends on behavioral changes and reinforce that classical subjects as hand hygiene, environmental cleaning, and prudent use of antimicrobials need to be rethinking on the set of new technologies using electronic media for alerts, consultations, and audits.