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Busan Metropolitan City Takes Proactive Action to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infectious Diseases through Public-Private Cooperation

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Busan Metropolitan City, led by Mayor Chun Jae-soo, announced that it will strengthen a community-based infection control cooperation system involving healthcare institutions, public health centers, and relevant organizations to prevent the occurrence and transmission of infectious diseases within healthcare institutions.

To prevent healthcare-associated infectious diseases, Busan Metropolitan City is operating the Healthcare-Associated Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Network Project and the CRE Infection Reduction Strategy Project, which reflects regional characteristics. Through these initiatives, the city provides infection control support throughout the entire process, from surveillance of infectious disease occurrence in healthcare institutions to epidemiological investigations, on-site technical support, analysis and feedback on results, and preventive outreach.

Healthcare-associated infectious diseases can occur and spread while patients are receiving medical services such as diagnosis, treatment, and nursing care. Because they can be particularly life-threatening for high-risk groups, including older adults, long-term inpatients, and immunocompromised patients, systematic management by healthcare institutions and close cooperation among relevant organizations are essential.

To facilitate a coordinated regional response, Busan Metropolitan City operates a regional infection control network centered on healthcare institutions participating in the Healthcare-Associated Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Project.

Participating institutions share information on cases and analyze notification and reporting data and infection control indicators to identify the infection control status and vulnerabilities of individual healthcare institutions.

The city also holds regular meetings and working-level consultations to discuss challenges encountered in the field and possible improvements. It is strengthening the infection control capacity of healthcare institutions across the region through expert consultation, technical support for infection control, and the sharing of best practices among institutions.

Through these efforts, Busan Metropolitan City aims to establish a Busan-specific safety net for healthcare-associated infectious diseases in which institutions go beyond responding individually and instead share infection control experience and information and respond together.

In addition, under the goal of identifying risks through data and reducing them in the field, the city is intensively implementing a strategy to reduce CRE infections that continue to occur in the region.

CRE infection is a Class 2 infectious disease caused by Enterobacterales species that are resistant to carbapenems, a major class of antibiotics. Because treatment options are limited and the risk of transmission within healthcare institutions is high, early detection, isolation, hand hygiene, and compliance with contact precautions are essential.

Busan Metropolitan City continuously analyzes notification and reporting data as well as key infection control indicators and conducts epidemiological investigations and risk factor analyses at healthcare institutions experiencing frequent cases.

Based on these findings, the city recommends customized improvement measures for each healthcare institution, including proactive screening of high-risk groups, patient isolation and cohort management, stronger compliance with hand hygiene and contact precautions, sharing CRE colonization information when patients are transferred, and environmental management of patient rooms and common areas.

The city also provides expert consultation and on-site technical support and regularly checks changes in infection control indicators and the implementation of improvement measures to help healthcare institutions sustain their own improvement activities.

To raise awareness of hand hygiene, Busan Metropolitan City held a Joint Public-Private Campaign Week for the Prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infectious Diseases from September 7 to 18 with 16 healthcare institutions participating in the Healthcare-Associated Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Project.

The campaign provided healthcare workers and residents with focused guidance on proper hand hygiene and preventive practices. In particular, an interactive program using fluorescent material and hand scanners allowed participants to directly observe the effectiveness of handwashing.

Busan Metropolitan City said the campaign provided an opportunity to strengthen infection control practices among healthcare workers while raising public awareness of prevention and promoting a culture of safe healthcare use.

Going forward, the city plans to continuously analyze trends in healthcare-associated infectious diseases and infection control indicators at individual healthcare institutions and strengthen on-site inspections and customized technical support for institutions experiencing frequent cases.

The city also plans to further reinforce the coordinated response system among relevant organizations and proactively promote early detection of CRE infections and prevention of transmission within healthcare institutions through education, training, and the dissemination of best practices.

Cho Gyu-yul, Director General of the Citizen Health Bureau of Busan Metropolitan City, said, “Because healthcare-associated infectious diseases are difficult to prevent through the efforts of individual healthcare institutions alone, it is important to have a cooperative system in which healthcare institutions and public health authorities share information and work together to make improvements.”

He added, “We will continue data-driven surveillance and field-oriented infection control support to create a safe healthcare environment in which residents can use healthcare institutions with confidence.”