2012 Volume 27 Issue 3 Pages 206-214
With the concern regarding the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, it is important for nurses, who provide first-line care to patients, to work in coordination with each other to improve nursing care and infection control throughout the whole region. Therefore, to establish an infection control network for nurses who administer infection control at clinics and hospitals, we conducted a survey on infection control at medical facilities and the need for such a nurse infection control network. For the analysis, we divided the 104 facilities (effective response rate: 19.6%) into three groups: clinics without beds, clinics with beds, and hospitals. The rates of medical facilities which included standard precautions in their infection control manuals were 22.9% among clinics without beds, 60.6% among clinics with beds, and 86.1% among hospitals. The rates of medical facilities which had provided descriptions of the procedure and timing of hand cleaning were 45.7% among clinics without beds, 54.5% among clinics with beds, and 86.1% among hospitals. We observed that many nurses in charge of infection control had felt the need to establish a nurse infection control network. However, only 71.4% of the nurses working at clinics without beds, answered that they wished to participate in the network due to reasons such as being too busy. The type of need for the infection control network differed between the clinics without beds, clinics with beds, and hospitals. The survey results indicated that infection control is still insufficient in small medical facilities. We believe that it is necessary to nurture an environment that makes it easy for even the staff of small medical facilities with a shortage of manpower to participate in the network through means such as the Internet, as well as facilitate the exchange of information and advice between different facilities through building such a network.
