ICPIC 2019: Fighting Hospital Infections

Malsfeld/Geneva – Nosocomial infection - by definition, this refers to an infection which a patient gets in the course of his or her treatment or during a stay in health and care facilities. It so describes one of the worst fears of any patient: to leave the facility more ill than when he or she entered it. Experts estimate the number of people infected in health and care facilities in Germany at around 500,000 a year. For about 3.5% of these, the infection is fatal.

Every two years, the International Conference of Prevention and Infection Control (ICPIC) examines the causes of this fatal development. For this years conference, which took place from September 10 to 13, the Geneva organizers also invited patients next to the specialist audience. This shows once more that infection control is not about academic solutions but about the patient.

For the medical and pharmaceutical industry, however, this is not a new trend. Thanks to digitalization, it has become easier to directly get into contact with patients and to get to know their opinions via social networks. In the research and development of new products, Dr. Schumacher GmbH works very closely with both patients and users. Especially the patient near environment poses increased risks. Here, Dr. Schumacher GmbH has developed individual solutions that achieve a high efficacy even in case of short exposure times. This offers users and patients the highest possible amount of safety in both routine and exceptional situations. Next to hand disinfectants, which doctors and nurses routinely use before and after treatment, a main focus is on surface disinfectants for the hospital bed and its immediate surroundings.

Next to the protection and safety of users and patients, a special focus is paid to the user-friendliness and compatibility of disinfectants. Medical personnel who disinfect their hands up to 50 times a day often complain about dry skin caused by hand disinfectants or direct contact with surface disinfectants during cleaning. Dr. Schumacher GmbH was therefore interested in taking a closer look at the question of which measures are really necessary and invited to the symposium "Sporicidal and virucidal efficacy in the near patient area. What is really necessary? What is really necessary?". Moderated by Dr. med. Johannes Tatzel, specialist for hygiene and environmental medicine at the Institute for Hospital Hygiene of the Heidenheim Clinics, Dr. med. univ. Sebastian Werner, Managing Partner of HygCen Germany GmbH, and PD Dr. med. Maren Eggers, Labor Enders MVZ GbR in Stuttgart, spoke on the acceleration of legal standards to increase patient safety and to offer users more safety in routine and exceptional situations.

"It’s just the right development that this year also the patients themselves were on site so that we can seek for a direct exchange. For us as a company, is it possible to develop products with practical relevance only in dialogue with users and patients," says Jens Schumacher, who was also on site.