2012 Volume 27 Issue 6 Pages 397-404
The notification from Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare in June 2011 required that health care facilities should build regional networks for mutual assistance. This survey tried to clarify the problems which now confront us, and to assess the need for infection control support in a regional network. The survey asked about the difficulties in infection control activities. Anonymous questionnaires were distributed to 577 medical institutions located in X prefecture in February 2012. Two hundred and eighty-eight (49.9%) medical institutions filled out the questionnaire. We have found many problems; the common weaknesses are education of staff, lack of experts, and isolated examination rooms. Most of the institutions plan to report or consult a public health center in case of an outbreak regardless of their scale. Small clinics have specific problems; they need help from large hospitals in case of outbreak; 86% of the clinics will not ask for infection control fees; they have difficulties in informed consent at the point of outbreak. Large medical centers have different problems; they have troubles in education of staff and lack of information at the time of transfer. Based on these findings, we should build a regional network in which large medical centers will help both medium hospitals and small clinics in case of an outbreak. A public health center should operate as a window. We should further tighten the cooperation of similar scale hospitals since the problems are different depending on the facility scale. Finally, a new infection fee to be claimed by small clinics will be necessary.