Updating the guideline development methodology of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC)

By Craig A. Umscheid et al.

The Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) is a federal advisory committee made up of 14 external infection control and public health experts, who provide guidance to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) regarding the practice of health care infection prevention and control, strategies for surveillance, and prevention and control of health care-associated infections (HAIs) in United States health care facilities. As such, one of the primary functions of the committee is to issue recommendations for preventing and controlling HAIs in the form of guidelines and less formal communications.[1] and [2] Currently, HICPAC guidance documents are available on its Web site for download,1 and a number of additional documents have been published since HICPAC’s inception, most commonly in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (ICHE), and the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC).

References 1) Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee Web site. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/hicpac.html. Accessed March 18, 2009.

2) Anonymous. Hospital Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee; establishment?CDC: notice of establishment, Federal Register 56 (1991), p. 5006.

Full text please go to American Journal of Infection Control

Update Guideline From HICPAC