Providing a broad overview of the microbial pathogens associated with hospital-acquired human illness, Techniques for the Study of Hospital Acquired Infection examines the cost-effective use of laboratory techniques in nosocomial infectious disease epidemiology and control. This concise guide addresses the cost benefits of combining modern molecular techniques with the traditional activities of infection control departments. The book is useful as a guide to hospital infection control programs as well as a text for medical practitioners, grad/medical students, researcher scientists, population biologists, molecular biologists, and microbiologists.

I. Introduction to Healthcare Associated Infections and Their Control.

1. The Hospital and Ambulatory Care Environment (Anne Y. Chen and Hiren Pokharma).

2. Pathogen Transmission in the Healthcare Setting (Sonja Hansen and Ralf-Peter Vonberg).

3. Infection Control Basics (Louise-Marie Dembry and Carlos Torres-Viera).

4. Cost-Effectiveness of IC Program (Marc-Oliver Wright and Eli N. Perencevich).

5. Outbreak Investigations (Importance of the Healthcare Epidemiologist) (Marcus J. Zervos).

6. Pathogen Elimination: Antibiotic and Disinfectant Use and the Development of Resistance (Steven L. Foley, Beilei Ge, Carl M. Schroeder, and Arron M. Lynne).

II. Techniques to Characterize Nosocomial Pathogens.

7. Rapid PCR Screening Methods (Ngolela Esther Babady, Frankling Cockerill and Robin Patel).

8. Restriction Analysis Techniques (Richard V. Goering, Mary Stemper, SanjayShukla and Steven Foley).

9. Pulsed-field Gel Electrophoresis (Mary Stemper, Steven Foley Richard V. Goering, and Sanjay Shukla).

III. Application of Techniques to Characterize Predominant Nosocomial Pathogens.

10. Staphylococcus aureus (Vanthida Huang).

11. Escherichia coli (Johann D. D. Pitout).

12. Fungal Infections (Jose A. Vazquez).

Index