Is accounting for acute care beds enough? A proposal for measuring infection prevention personnel resources

There is still little known about how infection prevention (IP) staffing affects patient outcomes across the country. Current evaluations mainly focus on the ratio of IP resources to acute care beds (ACBs) and have not strongly correlated with patient outcomes. The scope of IP and the role of the infection preventionist in health care have expanded and changed dramatically since the Study on the Efficacy of Nosocomial Infection Control (SENIC Project) recommended a 1 IP resource to 250 ACB ration in the 1980s. Without a universally accepted model for accounting for additional IP responsibilities, it is difficult to truly assess IP staffing needs. A previously suggested alternative staffing model was applied to acute care hospitals in our organization to determine its utility.