Information in infection control.

Effective infection control depends upon a clear understanding of the activities of surveillance, control, communication and management and of the nature and source of information required. Surveillance uses diverse information and computerization of hospital information provides the potential for automated detection of patients at risk of, or affected by, nosocomial infection. Routine visits to all hospital wards by the infection control team is widely advocated but is an inefficient use of a limited resource. 'Targeting' clinical areas with particular problems is more efficient but requires the means to find cases and perform risk assessment through surveillance. While microbiology laboratory reports are effective for case finding, sensitivity and specificity are low. The increasing use of computer held clinical data presents new opportunities for automated surveillance to guide the daily activities of the infection control team. It is essential to stress the importance of infection surveillance to those designing hospital information systems.