Introducing CORHA’s Principles and Practices for Healthcare Outbreak Response and its Importance
Posted: October 20, 2022
Chapters 1-5
The field of healthcare epidemiology has expanded tremendously and now encompasses an extensive network of stakeholders working collaboratively across healthcare settings, government agencies, and partner organizations to decrease healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial resistance (AR). The CORHA Principles and Practices for Healthcare Outbreak Response is a comprehensive reference that covers key concepts and topics related to HAI/AR outbreak detection, reporting, investigation, and control.
In its final form, the Principles and Practices will consist of 8 chapters and 2 supplemental documents. CORHA is excited to announce that the first 5 chapters are now available.
Chapter 1, “Overview,” introduces some basic concepts and terms, such as “HAI/AR outbreak” and “response,” and provides an outline and guide to subsequent chapters.
Chapter 2, “Fundamental Concepts,” focuses on the background and basis for surveillance of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial resistant (AR) pathogens, as well as associated outbreak response activities.
Chapter 3,” Planning and Preparation,” discusses strategies that public health agencies and other partners can use to create a strong foundation for healthcare outbreak response. Topics include communications, legal authorities, escalation, recovery and follow-up, as well as potential implementation of incident command systems.
Chapter 4, “Outbreak Detection and Reporting, “examines the detection and reporting of potential outbreaks, including detection via reports and through use of surveillance data. Definitions of sentinel cases, clusters, and outbreaks are described.
Chapter 5, “Investigation and Control,” reviews the goals of a healthcare outbreak investigation and includes collections of resources to support and improve the HAI/AR outbreak response. The chapter is arranged to follow the steps typically involved in a healthcare outbreak investigation.
With the publication of its Principles and Practices for Healthcare Outbreak, CORHA aims to equip public health, healthcare, and other stakeholders with a useful resource to build on and improve their healthcare outbreak response capacities and practices.
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