A study dedicated to eliminating infection
prevenIRAS: HAI (healthcare-associated infections) prevention in Spain
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It is the small things that matter — like regular hands washing or disinfection
Our mission: Help break infection chains
The term ‘nosocomial infection’ refers to diseases that people contract in hospitals, nursing institutions or at any healthcare-related treatment facility. Ironically, in precisely the places that are dedicated to curing patients: healthcare institutions. These diseases are known as healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
HARTMANN, a company on a mission: Infection prevention
Thomas Haeni, Vice President for the prevention of healthcare-associated infections at HARTMANN GROUP
"The COVID-19 pandemic is a textbook example of how the consequences of an infectious disease can get totally out of hand if chains of infection go unchecked."
Healthcare-associated infections were a challenge before COVID-19 and they will continue to be one when the pandemic is over. With our Mission: Infection Prevention (M:IP) programme, we offer a solution: a concept to minimise the risk of nosocomial infections.
Hospital germs cost European healthcare systems €7bn per year
Throughout Europe, almost 80,000 people die as a consequence of hospital germs per year, whether as a result of infections leading to sepsis or due to multiresistant pathogens for which there is no cure. The annual financial damage amounts to approximately €7bn.
At the center of the crisis: Healthcare workers performing under high pressure and time constraints. According to research conducted by the WHO, correct hygienic hand disinfection is often performed in between 40% and 60% of all cases, whereas a compliance rate of over 80% should be the actual target. Lack of time is often cited as a reason for this discrepancy: In busy institutions where a healthcare worker would actually have to disinfect his or her hands up to 50 or 100 times a day, these moments can easily be skipped.
Mission: Infection Prevention as an answer
Our holistic infection prevention approach is based on four components: consulting, digital monitoring, training concepts and bundling products. 50 hospital directors and heads of hygiene were interviewed for the mission and contributed their knowledge, along with the evidence-based solutions of the Bode Science Center, to create a broad knowledge base on the issue of infection prevention. Within the scope of the mission, all available information will flow into the communication and content hub available at www.missioninfectionprevention.info.
Thomas Haeni, Vice President for the prevention of healthcare-associated infections at HARTMANN GROUP
"Even though we are on a mission, we certainly don’t intend to preach. But we want to sensitise professional users in the health system and signal: we understand your needs, we are your partners. We want to offer a programme within the system itself, in the shape of individual advice to institutions, to optimise processes, interrupt chains of risk and drive home that you can prevent suffering and earn money with infection prevention."
The paradigm shift towards prevention
Thomas Haeni is realistic enough to know that any protection that is 100% safe does not and never will exist – but even though the seatbelt and the airbag did not make driving a car 100% safe, they substantially reduced the number of traffic fatalities. It is the small things, such as regularly washing or disinfecting hands and adhering to the rules on wearing masks, that can intercept major waves of infection in a population.
Thomas Haeni, Vice President for the prevention of healthcare-associated infections at HARTMANN GROUP
"On average, we witness an outbreak every five years and this is gaining traction. It may be that from now on we’ll have a damaging outbreak of a virus or bacteria on a regular basis. The world is not getting any cleaner. We have to make sure that we protect ourselves well."
HARTMANN stands for prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs)
Find out why infection prevention is elementary and how our 5-phase plan can help to increase patient health.
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Suetens et al. Prevalence of healthcare-associated infections, estimated incidence and composite antimicrobial resistance index in acute care hospitals and long-term care facilities: results from two European point prevalence surveys, 2016 to 2017. Euro Surveill. 2018.
Zacher et al. Application of a new methodology and R package reveals a high burden of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) in Germany compared to the average in the European Union/European Economic Area, 2011 to 2012. Euro Surveill. 2019; 24(46): pii=1900135.
Klevens et al. Estimating healthcare-associated infections and deaths in US hospitals, 2002. Public Health Rep 2007;122(2):160–166.
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Magill et al. Changes in Prevalence of Health Care-Associated Infections in U.S. Hospitals. N Engl. J. Med. 2018; 379: 1732-1744.
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