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Eight tips to help you conduct a thorough outbreak investigation

Briefings on Infection Control, March 1, 2009

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Briefings on Infection Control.

After reading this article, you will be able to:

• Recognize how to perform a proper epidemiological investigation
• Describe some of the common missteps ICPs make in conducting an investigation of an infectious disease outbreak

Tracking down the source of an infectious disease outbreak is the stuff television dramas are made of. But real- life investigations are far from glamorous.

“Epidemiological investigations can be time-consuming and tedious—they’re boring,” says Connie DeLeo, BS, MT(ASCP), CIC, IC coordinator at Baton Rouge (LA) General. Culturing 50 cabinet handles isn’t exciting work, DeLeo says, and the end result may be equally frustrating. Although TV investigators always find their answers and wrap up their investigations neatly in an hour-long show, in real life, ICPs will spend hours or days trying to find the source of an outbreak only to come up empty. They may even see the problem go away on its own, says DeLeo. “New ICPs may get frustrated at that and say, ‘What’s the point of this?’ ” she adds.

However boring or frustrating, outbreak investigations are among the more critical functions an ICP performs. The keys to success are learning how to perform an investigation properly and avoiding some common missteps, says DeLeo. The following eight tips will help you conduct a top-notch investigation:

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Briefings on Infection Control.

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