Published: 09 November 2023
A new surveillance toolkit has launched today to help neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) track and prevent hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in high-risk newborns, including those who are born very prematurely.
This toolkit, which is available free of charge online, provides NICUs with essential tools to collect data on infection rates and risk factors and make evidence-based decisions about their infection prevention and control (IPC) strategies.
The NeoIPC surveillance system is based on standardised definitions and data collection methods, making it easy for NICUs to compare their data with benchmarking data generated from other participating NICUs in the same region and around the world.
It has been developed in the context of the EU Horizon 2020-funded project NeoIPC, by researchers with longstanding experience in surveillance and neonatology at St George's, University of London, University of Padua, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Osakidetza – Servicio Vasco de Salud and Stellenbosch University.
“The NeoIPC surveillance toolkit is the result of many months of intense work and collaboration among NeoIPC partners. We are excited to make this toolkit available to NICUs around the world, and we hope that it will help to improve IPC practices and to reduce the incidence of HAIs in newborns.”
- Dr Julia Bielicki, Project Coordinator at St George's Centre for Neonatal and Paediatric Infection -
Through the surveillance system, NICUs will collect data about high-risk infants, including their birth weight, gestational age, length of NICU stay, and the use of invasive devices such as central vascular catheters or ventilation support. They will also monitor occurrences of common types of hospital-acquired infections, namely bloodstream infections, pneumonia, surgical site infections, and necrotizing enterocolitis.
The system will be piloted in 24 NICUs across the UK, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland in 2024.
All materials are available free of charge on the NeoIPC website for any NICU planning to participate in the NeoIPC surveillance or to establish their own HAI surveillance programme.
Learn more about our research at the Centre for Neonatal and Paediatric Infection.
Julia Bielicki
Featured Researcher