[Structures and policy of nosocomial infection prevention: France is speeding up the process].

For the past 10 years France has tried to set up a programme to prevent and survey nosocomial infections and antibiotic resistance. A series of recommendations have been made available for hospitals. Hygiene, nosocomial infections, and resistance to antibiotics are recognized by medical doctors, nurses and administrative people as pertinent and logical quality indicators. Those indicators will probably be proposed by the French agency for accreditation and evaluation. We still need to define which events are preventable, which should be declared to the official agencies, and how to integrate infection control in a broader programme coordinating different systems of surveillance (drug, blood, ...) and risk management. We have also to make those informations available to the public in a more transparent mind.