The terms ‘incident’ and ‘Incident Management Team’ (IMT) are used as generic terms to cover both incidents and outbreaks

A healthcare infection incident may be:

An exceptional infection episode

• a single case of rare infection that has severe outcomes for an individual AND has major implications for others (patients, staff and/or visitors), the organisation or wider public health for example, high consequence infectious disease (HCID) OR other rare infections such as XDR-TB, botulism, polio, rabies, or diphtheria.

See literature review on PPE for High Consequence Infectious Diseases (HCID).

A healthcare infection exposure incident

• Exposure of patients, staff, public to a possible infectious agent as a result of a healthcare system failure or a near miss e.g. ventilation, water or decontamination incidents.

A healthcare associated infection outbreak

• Two or more linked cases with the same infectious agent associated with the same healthcare setting over a specified time period.

or

• A higher-than-expected number of cases of HAI in a given healthcare area over a specified time period.

A healthcare infection data exceedance

• A greater than expected rate of infection compared with the usual background rate for the place and time where the incident has occurred.

A healthcare infection near miss incident

• An incident which had the potential to expose patients to an infectious agent but did not e.g. decontamination failure.

A healthcare infection incident should be suspected if there is:

• a single case of an infection for which there have previously been no cases in the facility (e.g. infection with a multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) with unusual resistance patterns or a post-procedure infection with an unusual organism)

Neonatal Units 

In addition to using these definitions, neonatal unit investigation by IPCT is also required if:

• a single case of Pseudomonas aeruginosa is identified within a neonatal unit

or

• a single case of infection with an alert organism is identified within a neonatal unit

Additionally, the local IPC team should consider the possibility of any onward transmission and potential for an incident/outbreak where there is:

• A single case of colonisation with an alert organism identified within a neonatal unit.

Resources

Further information can be found in the literature review Healthcare infection incidents and outbreaks in Scotland.

Further information for neonatal IPC management of healthcare incidents and outbreaks can be found in the supporting literature review.