Hospital infection control in the 21st century--importance of network for hospital infection control and role of clinical laboratory

The clinical laboratory is important as a department which provides diagnostic and advisory services to clinicians and support surveillance for hospital infection control. Though the link between clinical laboratory and other departments including infection control team is paramount for infection control, there are the communication delays by the documented reports. The use of the hospital information system can streamline the work of infection control, because laboratory(including microbiology) data can be obtained quickly. In order to implement efficient infection control, it is necessary to construct the information network by utilizing the local area network in the hospital. Since the community-acquired infections due to resistant micro-organisms are increasing in 1990s, we should expand the information network in community and nation-wide in the 21st century.