Measures to promote hygiene in geriatric and long-term care

For hospitals, the Directives for Hospital Hygiene and Prevention of Infection issued by the Robert Koch Institute represent clear and well formulated hygiene guidelines in terms of a set of rules. However, for long-term care facilities there are no standard hygiene procedures, and the above mentioned guideline recommendations are difficult to apply to geriatric and long-term care as well as to rehabilitation. It is left to the institutions themselves to determine the role of hygiene and prevention of infection. Framework guidelines are provided in the Protective Law on Infections and the hygiene requirements contained therein. However, there are no suggestions on how to actually implement the hygiene requirements. This article demonstrates one way in which the protective law might be transferred and used in practice based on the classic procedures of quality management. This is explained as a step-by-step, planned process. The appendix contains one possible structure and excerpts from a control checklist.