Towards the Development of An International Health Care Associated Infection Surveillance System

The Saudi Arabian National Guard Health Affairs (NGHA) is a large health organization providing optimum healthcare to Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) personnel, their dependants and other eligible patients. NGHA also provides excellent academic opportunities, conducts research and participates in industry and community service programs in the health field. NGHA is dedicated to be domestically and internationally recognized as acclaimed centers of excellence to enhance individual and public health status. The major mission of NGHA is not confined to providing highest quality healthcare to patients, but also promoting community health. This is achieved through improving and developing the provided services by means of sharing experiences, collaboration, and partnership with world’s leading recognized organizations; e.g., World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Our present collaboration project with the National Center for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) at the CDC to develop and deploy a nationwide state of the art Integrated Electronic Disease Surveillance System, across all NGHA facilities, is a live example of such devoted efforts. The Department of Infection Prevention and Control (DIPC) at the NGHA has been taking the leading role in promoting and supporting modern healthcare safety initiatives among Gulf Cooperation Council States (GCC) and across the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO). As well, DIPC has recently earned international recognition as the GCC and WHO Collaborating Center for Infection Prevention and Control. The SANG Healthcare Safety Network (NGHSN) is a major component of our comprehensive disease surveillance system, besides of its state or the art design and best-of-breed technology, we think that our system’s collaborative agreement and development partnership is an active model for a global era of sharing expertise, solutions, and tools of public health informatics globally for the benefits of humankind in its fight against new and old pathogenic threats.