Institute for Infection Prevention and Control

To protect patients from infections. This is the principle responsibility of the Institute for Infection Prevention and Hospital Hygiene at the Medical Centre – University of Freiburg. Our staff is therefore a reliable partner when it comes to identifying and assessing risks for patients. Our daily job is to detect these at an early stage in order to initiate interventions targeted at preventing new infections. In this way, we contribute to ensuring that the Medical Center can provide a high degree of safety for patients and employees. Our international contributions to research are also concerned with the containment of infectious agents.   The aim is to prevent this global health threat, which is increasingly caused by antibiotic-resistant hospital germs, from affecting patients and other citizens in the region served by the Medical Center through innovative measures.

Areas and questions of infection prevention and hospital hygiene that are influenced by structural conditions or by systems and equipment are assigned to technical hygiene. A close hygiene connection exists, for example, with ventilation systems, recooling plants, water and waste water installations, cleaning and disinfection devices or sterilisers. In the hospital, operating theatre and intensive care areas, the preparation of medical devices, the production of medicines and other clean room areas, the supply of food and laundry and, last but not least, house cleaning are areas that are influenced to a large extent by technical conditions.