Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Prevention
Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are increasingly recognized as a significant problem in healthcare. In the US, an estimated two million patients a year acquire an HAI and 90,000 of these patients die as a result. Hence, infection prevention and hospital epidemiology are areas of progressively growing importance.
The Department of Infection Prevention & Control (IP&C) at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (NYP) has a robust program that covers all five inpatient hospitals across the Columbia and Cornell campuses, including over 2,000 beds, 16 intensive care units, and significant populations of immunocompromised patients including oncology, bone marrow transplant, solid organ transplant, and HIV/AIDS. IP&C works closely with the Division of Infectious Diseases in:
- Preventing adverse outcomes of hospital-acquired infections and related events
- Managing infection outbreaks
- Supporting infection control-related work of all Hospital staff
- Minimizing occupational hazards associated with the delivery of healthcare
- Developing staff, patient and visitor education materials
- Fostering evidence-based decision making in the Hospital's continual pursuit of excellence
There are six hospital epidemiologists across the campuses who work to support the NYP IP&C department. They are board-certified in infectious diseases, faculty members in the Columbia or Cornell infectious diseases divisions, and are widely recognized and published in the field of infection control/hospital epidemiology.
Research Opportunities
There are numerous ongoing clinical research projects related to epidemiology of healthcare-associated infections or antimicrobial resistance, as well as outcome research projects evaluating interventions around infection prevention. Collaborations can occur across both the Columbia and Cornell campuses, resulting in very robust studies with a large and diverse patient population. Additionally, collaborations are possible with faculty in the Mailman School of Public Health and School of Nursing, including with prominent healthcare researchers such as Elaine Larson, PhD, who has published extensively on hand hygiene and other areas in healthcare epidemiology, and Patricia Stone, PhD, who is widely recognized as an expert in cost effectiveness analyses in healthcare epidemiology.
Education
A multifaceted hospital epidemiology curriculum led by Drs. Furuya, Saiman, and Greendyke has been created for fellows, which includes: didactics on basics of hospital epidemiology, exposure investigations, and outbreak investigations; participation in infection prevention meetings; didactics and participation in occupational health-related infection control issues (e.g., healthcare worker exposures to bloodborne pathogens or other exposures); participation in surveillance of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) with infection preventionists.
