Epidemiology of Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI) in Australia

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a major patient safety issue in hospitals. HAIs continue to occur and lead to morbidity, mortality and excess healthcare expenditure. Central to all efforts to control and prevent healthcare associated infections (HAIs) is the inherent need to measure the burden of infection and disease, classically referred to as surveillance. Australia does not have a national HAI surveillance system making it significantly difficult to systematically assess and report on the burden of hospital-acquired HAIs or the effect of improvement strategies. The dearth public reporting of the incidence and prevalence of HAIs in Australian hospitals makes it very difficult to calculate an accurate burden of infection. On the eve of a global ‘post antibiotic era’, the need for national consensus on definitions, surveillance methodology and reporting is paramount.

This is the first monograph to collate the available data regarding the epidemiology of healthcare-associated surveillance in Australia in the absence of national surveillance program. In so doing, it provides hospitals and those working in infection prevention and control an opportunity to benchmark and evaluate interventions to reduce infections. From a public perspective, it will provide some transparency on infection rates in hospitals and to motivate action nationally. The lack of collated and publicly available data of the burden of HAIs in Australia erodes and undermines our collective efforts for quality and safety in healthcare.

Biography: 

Professor Ramon Z. Shaban is Clinical Chair of Infection Prevention and Disease Control jointly appointed at the University of Sydney within the Sydney Nursing School and Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases of the Faculty of Medicine and Health, the New South Wales Biocontainment Centre and Western Sydney Local Health District, New South Wales Ministry of Health. Professor Shaban is a leading internationally credentialed expert infection control practitioner with expertise in high-consequence infectious diseases, disease control and emergency care. Locally as Clinical Chair he is District Director of Infection Prevention and Disease Control for Western Sydney Local Health District, where is provides strategic and operational leadership of infection prevention and control services. He is also Associate Director of the New South Wales Biocontainment Centre Committee, the state-of-the-art facility for the prevention, containment and management of high-consequence infectious disease located at Westmead Hospital in New South Wales. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Australasian Emergency Care and a Senior Editor for the journal Infection, Disease and Health.