Ignac Semmelweis: infection control, statistical analysis and quality control

Ignac Philipp Semmelweis (1818-1865): handwashing saves lives.

Ignaz Semmelweis and the birth of infection control.

W orldwide, sepsis is the cause of death in about 1400 people each day. Many of these people develop sepsis from infections acquired as patients while in a hospital. Infections acquired in the hospital are called nosocomial infections. They are the most common complications of hospitalized patients, with 5–10% of patients in acute care hospitals acquiring at least one infection. Nosocomial infe...

Beyond Semmelweis: moving infection control into the community.

Respiratory and diarrheal diseases generate a substantial health burden globally and domestically, causing 7.0% and 3.5%, respectively, of all deaths worldwide each year (1). Among the infectious causes of death, lower respiratory tract infections rank first, causing an estimated 3.8 million deaths each year, and diarrheal diseases rank third, responsible for nearly 2 million deaths (1). The co...

Statistical Quality Control Procedures

Taguchi's emphasis on instilling quality at the design stage has been important in a number of situations and deserves careful attention. His specific robust design approach has yielded good results in many instances, but recent studies indicate that more classical designs can serve the same purposes-sometimes, at least, doing so more efficiently, albeit less understandably for the technically ...

Statistical quality control methods in infection control and hospital epidemiology, part I: Introduction and basic theory.

This article is the first in a two-part series discussing and illustrating the application of statistical process control (SPC) to processes often examined by hospital epidemiologists. The basic philosophical and theoretical foundations of statistical quality control and their relation to epidemiology are emphasized in order to expand mutual understanding and cross-fertilization between these t...