Guide to Infection Prevention for Outpatient Settings: Minimum Expectations for Safe Care [2014]

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (U.S.). Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (U.S.)
• Description:
  This Guide has been updated to include the "Infection Prevention Checklist for Outpatient Settings" (Appendix A).
  
  The following document is a summary guide of infection prevention recommendations for outpatient (ambulatory care) settings. The recommendations included in this document are not new but rather reflect existing evidence-based guidelines produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee. This summary guide is based primarily upon elements of Standard Precautions and represents the minimum infection prevention expectations for safe care in ambulatory care settings. Readers are urged to use the Infection Prevention Checklist for Outpatient Settings (Appendix A), a companion to the summary guide, and to consult the full guidelines for additional background, rationale, and evidence behind each recommendation.
  
  The transition of healthcare delivery from acute care hospitals to outpatient (ambulatory care) settings, along with ongoing outbreaks and patient notification events, have demonstrated the need for greater understanding and implementation of basic infection prevention guidance. Guide to Infection Prevention for Outpatient Settings: Minimum Expectations for Safe Care distills existing infection prevention guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC).
  
  Over the past several decades, we have witnessed a significant shift in healthcare delivery from the acute, inpatient hospital setting to a variety of ambulatory and community-based settings. Ambulatory care is provided in hospital-based outpatient clinics, nonhospital-based clinics and physician offices, ambulatory surgical centers, and many other specialized settings. Americans have frequent encounters with ambulatory care. For example, more than three-quarters of all operations in the United States are performed in settings outside the hospital1. In addition, between 1995 and 2007, the average person made three visits each year to physician offices2. By 2007, the total number of physician offices visits approached one billion3. Vulnerable patient populations rely on frequent and intensive use of ambulatory care to maintain or improve their health. For example, each year more than one million cancer patients receive outpatient chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or both4. It is critical that all of this care be provided under conditions that minimize or eliminate risks of healthcare-associated infections (HAI).
  
  
• Subjects:
  Ambulatory Care Ambulatory Care Facilities Ambulatory Care Facilities / Standards Cross Infection Cross Infection / Prevention & Control Infection Control Infection Control / Methods Outpatients
• Keywords:
  CS250247 HAI Healthcare-Associated Infections
• Publisher:
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (U.S.)
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Guideline
• Rights:
  Public Domain
• CIO:
  National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID)
• Division:
  DHQP - Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion
• Topic:
  Diseases & Conditions
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  34 pdf pages
• Collection(s):
  Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:678f2f83006edacf2175e5e10c9e7ef245605355f98f85c933667dbf2854d22e723ac8d8b895d733f099ad8b323aaf310ac6df575f707def9d6185253b03cf74
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/25622/cdc_25622_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 683.04 KB ]