Surveillance and outbreak management
This chapter describes the surveillance of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and outlines the management of an outbreak. The chapter on surveillance describes the objectives and advantages and disadvantages of various surveillance strategies. It describes how to collect and validate surveillance data and calculate various HAI rates. It also summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of both outcome and process surveillance. It provides a list of alert infectious conditions and alert organisms which need to be monitored by healthcare facilities. Advice is also given on how to recognize and manage an outbreak, and the role of the microbiology laboratory. It provides advice on how to develop an epidemic curve and summarizes what steps should be taken on an investigation of an outbreak.