Hospital-acquired infections as patient safety indicators.

Transmission of infection in the hospital has been identified as a patient safety problem adversely affecting patients, visitors, and health care workers. Prevention of infection should not be limited to the hospital epidemiology staff but also must involve the entire multidisciplinary team, including nurses. This chapter reviews the literature related to patient safety of nursing-authored studies of infection control in the hospital. The review indicated that there were key areas of research interest including drug resistance; hand hygiene products, procedures, and surveillance; preoperative skin preparations; health care worker transmission of infection; common procedures associated with an increased risk of transmission; and organizational issues.