Infection Control
Infection control is the discipline concerned with preventing nosocomial
or healthcare-associated infection. As such, it is a practical (rather than an academic)
sub-discipline of epidemiology. It is an essential (though often under-recognized
and under-supported) 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.