Hygiene officer doctor

A hygiene officer, doctor, works in a hospital or another medically managed medical facility (doctor's practice, medical care center MVZ) to ensure compliance with external and internal hygiene regulations. In contrast to the specialist in hygiene (training duration: 60 months as for most specialist training courses), the hygiene officer doctor has completed a 40-hour face-to-face event certified by the State Medical Association or completed an equivalent blended learning course.

Requirements, training

According to Section 4 of the Infection Protection Act, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has the task of developing concepts for the prevention, early detection and prevention of the spread of communicable diseases. It creates guidelines, recommendations and other information for this purpose. This defines the current state of medical science in Germany through the guidelines of the RKI . Institutions that do not follow these guidelines must claim the deviation as a failure in the event of liability.

In the “Guideline for Hospital Hygiene and Infection Prevention”, the Robert Koch Institute has described the necessity of appointing hygiene officers doctors and the content of the training required for this.

The prerequisite for working as a hygiene officer for a doctor is at least two years of clinical activity and participation in special advanced training courses on hospital hygiene with the following content (basic course):

• Laws, guidelines and other regulations on hygiene
• Hospital infections
  1. Basics (clinic, microbiology , epidemiology )
  2. Detection (analysis and evaluation of microbiological findings, environmental examinations , antibiograms )
  3. Prevention (function, construction and equipment of medical facilities, procedural instructions for hygiene, microbiological controls)
  4. Control (in-house procedures and controls, disinfection , sterilization , pest control )
• Hygiene commission
• Personal protection
• Water hygiene
• Waste disposal
• Cooperation with laboratory institutes and supervisory authorities

The doctor responsible for hygiene should take part in a full-day training course on hospital hygiene at least once a year (advanced course).

Task sharing

Some states have state regulations governed the appointment of office-holders and their responsibilities for hospital hygiene binding.

medical administration

The Infection Protection Act assigns various tasks to the medical director of a hospital ( medical director ), so that he is ultimately responsible for hospital hygiene: prevention of communicable diseases, reporting obligations, sentinel surveys, recording and evaluation of nosocomial infections and special resistances. The department-specific responsibility for hygiene is usually transferred to the chief physicians in an employment contract.

Chief physicians

As a rule, each individual chief physician of the various specialist clinics is given ultimate responsibility for hygiene in his specialist clinic by means of an employment contract .

Hygiene commission

The area of ​​responsibility of the hygiene commission is determined by state ordinance. There it is determined which responsibility and composition this hygiene commission has. A hygiene committee is usually set up in every healthcare facility.

Hygiene officer doctor

A hygiene officer doctor must be appointed for each hospital by the management committee or management , in large hospitals this should be done for each specialist clinic.

The doctor responsible for hygiene supports and advises the medical director and the hospital management on hygiene-related issues (e.g. general hygiene measures, hygiene plans, inspections, insulation measures, hygienic-microbiological controls, construction measures, internal implementation of hygiene-relevant laws, ordinances and guidelines). This means that the hygiene officer, although formally ultimately responsible, has no final decision-making authority in his advisory role.

The doctor hygiene officer works closely with the hygiene specialist and advises them in particular on medical issues. He is usually consulted for inspections and measures by supervisory authorities ( health department , trade supervisory office , veterinary office ).

Hygiene specialist

Due to the guidelines of the Robert Koch Institute or, in some federal states, by ordinance, hospitals must employ nursing staff trained in the field of hospital hygiene ( hygiene specialists ) who have the following tasks:

• Monitoring of hospital hygiene and hospital hygiene measures
• Carrying out visits to the wards and other nursing, diagnostic, therapeutic and supply-related areas
• Informing doctors and nursing staff and other managerial staff in the event of suspected cases of frequent infections
• Creation of infection and resistance statistics
• Training of employees regarding hygiene measures
• Monitoring of hygiene and disinfection measures
• Creation of work instructions and hygiene plans
• Participation in epidemiological investigations
• Participation in the technical supervision of the sterilization department, the bed control center and the hospital building cleaning

Hospital hygienist

The area of ​​responsibility for hospital hygienists is determined by state ordinance. He must have further training as a specialist.

Auditing

The assessment of the quality in the hospital, in particular the hygiene, is carried out by an independent external body according to fixed rules.

Web links

• Text of the Infection Protection Act
• Hygiene Ordinance Saxony. (PDF)
• Hygiene Ordinance North Rhine-Westphalia.
• Hospital Hygiene and Infection Prevention Policy (Old Equipment). (PDF)
• Statement by the German Society for Hospital Hygiene e. V.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Specialist in hygiene and environmental medicine ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Axel Kramer, Claus Bartels, Reinhard Hoffmann, Joerg Ansorg: Responsibility of hygienic doctors for the prevention of nosocomial infections . In: Trauma and Occupational Disease . tape 18 , no. 3 , July 16, 2015, ISSN  1436-6274 , p. 214–221 , doi : 10.1007 / s10039-015-0068-7 ( springer.com [accessed December 5, 2016]).
3. ↑ Annex to Section 5.3.5 of the Guideline for the Detection, Prevention and Control of Hospital Infections . In: Bundesgesundheitsblatt , 22/1979; No. 24, November 30, 1996, pp. 449-451
4. ↑ Local hygiene commission, example Wermelskirchen