The social impact, public opinion concern and damage to families caused by outbreaks of neonatal hospital-acquired infections are unimaginable.
Due to the incomplete development of neonatal immune system, imperfect barrier function, thin skin mucosa, poor respiratory cilia movement, less gastric acid, bile acid, imperfect development of the blood-brain barrier, external pathogenic bacteria are easy to invade neonates, especially low-birthweight babies in intensive care wards, preterm babies and other high-risk neonates, which is a high-risk group of outbreaks of hospital-acquired infections. Any non-standard operation or link may lead to the occurrence of neonatal hospital-acquired infections.
The clinical manifestations of neonatal infections are atypical and not easy to be detected at an early stage, therefore, the neonatal morbidity and mortality rate is high, the hazards are great, and the consequences are serious; the outbreak of hospital-acquired infections in neonates is complicated by pathogens of infections (bacteria, viruses, and fungi), and it is difficult to determine the sources of infections and the means of transmission, which makes it very difficult to investigate and intervene; behind every neonatal hospital-acquired infection, there are problems such as the implementation of sensing and control measures not being in place, and so on. Behind every incident of neonatal hospital infection, there is a lack of implementation of infection control measures and other problems in place, which has sounded an alarm from time to time for the work of infection control. Therefore, neonatal hospital infection prevention and control is a systematic project, which requires all-round and whole-process attention for infection prevention and control.
Neonatology is the key department and population of hospital infection prevention and control, how to prevent the occurrence of neonatal hospital infections, to ensure the quality and safety of health care, the current international consensus is as follows:
1. Establish a sound management organisation and conscientiously fulfil its responsibilities
Sound and perfect hospital infection management organisation is an important organisational management work to prevent neonatal hospital infection events.
a. Neonatology department to establish departmental hospital infection management team, the director of the department as a team leader, clear responsibilities and division of labour, conscientiously perform the duties of hospital infection management, regular meetings, analysis and feedback on the hospital infection monitoring situation, problems, and improvement measures.
b. Combined with the characteristics of neonatal hospital infection prevention and control work, the development of hospital infection management system and workflow in line with the characteristics of neonatal specialties, with operability, implementation and landing in the daily work, and based on national, provincial and municipal requirements, combined with the actual hospital system, process regularly updated and improved.
c. Neonatology management process, should develop detailed process guidelines, conducive to the effective implementation of the system process, such as neonatal incubator cleaning and disinfection process, equipment, table cleaning and disinfection process, etc., presented in the form of illustrations and illustrations, so that operators such as janitorial staff is easy to grasp and implement.
d. Formulate the quality assessment standard and checklist for infection prevention and control in neonatal hospitals, check the implementation of infection prevention and control measures at the hospital and departmental levels on a regular basis, and carry out process monitoring of invasive operations.