Reading Room
Find articles about healthcare-associated infection published in The Lancet journals

Speakers

	Benedetta Allegranzi Benedetta Allegranzi is a specialist in infectious diseases and tropical medicine with expertise in infection control and hospital epidemiology. She currently works at the World Health Organization and at the Infection Control Programme at the University of Geneva Hospitals, Geneva , Switzerland . She is the Deputy Lead of the First Global Patient Safety Challenge "Clean Care is Safer Care" of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety, and is responsible for implementation of the First Global Patient Safety Challenge in Europe and Africa . Her current major research interests include the burden of healthcare-associated infections worldwide, infection control in developing countries, effectiveness of hand hygiene improvement in settings at different level of resources, and education methods for hand hygiene improvement.

	Marc J M Bonten Marc Bonten is head of the department of medical microbiology at the Julius Center for Health Sciences & Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht. His research interests include the (molecular) epidemiology of antibiotic resistance, mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, prevention of nosocomial infections, and antibiotic resistance and clinical vaccination studies.

	Tammy Boyce Tammy Boyce is the Research Fellow in Public Health at the King's Fund. Her current work focuses on ways to promote behaviour change among health practitioners, patients, and the public. Her previous research includes an analysis of the MMR vaccine found in her book Health, risk and news: the MMR vaccine and the media, and research on obesity and climate change.

	Stephanie J Dancer Stephanie works in NHS Lanarkshire and is the current editor of the Journal of Hospital Infection. She has worked in various remote areas of the world, including Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Canadian High Arctic where she resuscitated 30 000 year old organisms from glacial ice. She spent 6 years as the Infection Control Officer for Argyll before moving to Health Protection Scotland as their inaugural microbiologist. There, she set up MRSA surveillance for Scotland, evaluated real-time PCR for the rapid identification of MRSA, and helped establish the Scottish Microbiology Forum. She has been an active member of several national working groups on antibiotic prescribing and hospital cleaning, and was a formal referee for the Scottish Health Technology Assessment on MRSA screening. At present she balances clinical and editorial duties with various research projects, specifically the role of antibiotics, screening and cleaning in the control of MRSA.

	Brian I Duerden Brian Duerden is the Inspector of Microbiology and Infection Control at the Department of Health. He is responsible for ensuring the quality and consistency of clinical and public-health microbiology services and is the clinical director for the HCAI programme. He is also Professor of Medical Microbiology at Cardiff University. His major interests are in anaerobic microbiology, healthcare-associated infection, and antibiotic resistance. He has published over 140 scientific papers, edited and contributed to several textbooks, and served for 20 years (1982-2002) as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Medical Microbiology. He was awarded CBE for services to medicine and charity in 2008.

	Jonathan D Edgeworth Jonathan Edgeworth is a consultant microbiologist and clinical director of pathology at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital and an honorary senior lecturer at King's College London. He has a PhD in immunology and did basic research on bacterial pathogenesis and innate immunity at Cancer Research UK and Institut Pasteur, before taking up his current position in 2002. His research interest is in the epidemiology and pathogenesis of hospital-acquired infections, particularly those due to meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

No Image	Nigel Edwards Nigel is Director of Policy for the NHS Confederation, the membership organisation that represents 99% of NHS organisations in the UK. His role is to influence health policy on behalf of members, develop the Confederation's policy positions on areas of key interest to members, and to speak on behalf of NHS organisations, particularly in the media. Nigel has established the Health Services Research Network as part of the Confederation to provide a voice for the research community and improve dialogue between managers, policy-makers, and research. Previously, Nigel was Director of the London Health Economics Consortium at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine which undertook a number of high profile strategic consultancies for the NHS, the World Bank, and the Department for International Development. He is an Honorary Visiting Professor at the LSHTM.

	Jean-Yves Fagon Jean-Yves Fagon studied medicine in Paris, France, and proceeded to specialise in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine before undertaking a PhD. Presently, he is head of the medical intensive care unit at the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Paris, and head of the medical policy department at the Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP). He is also a professor of medicine at René Descartes - Paris 5 University. His current research interests include pulmonary infections; nosocomial infections, particularly nosocomial pneumonia; bronchoalveolar lavage; evaluation (including prognosis) of critically ill patients; the clinical investigation of acute lung injury and sepsis; and the care of the elderly in the intensive care unit.

	Matthew E Falagas Matthew Falagas is an adjunct associate professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts; Founder and Director of the Alfa Institute of Biomedical Sciences (AIBS), Athens, Greece; and Director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of Henry Dunant Hospital, Athens, Greece. His research interests include antimicrobial resistance, polymyxins, nosocomial infections, infections in immunocompromised patients, estimates and determinants of research productivity, and medical education.

No Image	Martin Fletcher Martin Fletcher is the Chief Executive of the National Patient Safety Agency in England. Prior to joining the NPSA, Martin worked with the World Alliance for Patient Safety at WHO Headquarters where he played a major part in initiating and establishing a global programme of work on patient safety. Martin has a 20 year background in health policy and health management, with a particular focus on safety and quality of health care.

No Image	Gary L French Gary French is Professor of Microbiology at King's College London and Honorary Consultant and Infection Control Doctor at Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Hospital Trust. He was formerly Chairman of the Hospital Infection Society, Editor of the Journal of Hospital Infection, and a board member of the International Federation of Infection Control. He is, or has been, a member of many working parties and advisory committees on healthcare-associated infection, including the UK Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection and the Rapid Review Panel (of innovations in infection control). He is a member of assessment panels for translational research for CRCUK and NIHR. His research and clinical interests are in hospital infection and the epidemiology and genetics of antibiotic resistance and he has lectured and published widely in these areas.

No Image	Herman Goossens Herman Goossens is a professor of medical microbiology at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, where he is director of the laboratory of clinical biology and head of the research laboratory of medical microbiology. He has published more than 300 full papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, mainly on antibiotic use and resistance, rapid diagnostics, pathogenicity of enteric pathogens, and molecular epidemiology. He published 25 chapters in textbooks and presented his research on invitation at more than 250 international scientific meetings. Herman Goossens holds several expert positions in Belgian, EU, USA, and WHO official organisations. He is the founder and Vice-Chair of the Belgian Antibiotic Policy Co-ordination Committee (BAPCOC).

No Image	Professor Ian Gilmore Professor Ian Gilmore is the President of the Royal College of Physicians. He is a Consultant Physician and Gastroenterologist at the Royal Liverpool University Hospitals and Honorary Professor at the Department of Medicine, University of Liverpool. His specialty interest is liver disease. Professor Gilmore was previously Registrar of the College and a member of Council. He chaired a Working Party in 2001, producing the report Alcohol - can the NHS afford it? A blueprint for a coherent alcohol strategy. Professor Gilmore continues to chair the Alcohol Committee and now also chairs the Alcohol Health Alliance in which relevant agencies work together in a coherent and focussed framework. He has recently been selected as Chair of the European Alcohol and Health Forum Science Group and is a member of the Climate and Health Council. He has lectured extensively overseas and has particularly fruitful clinical and research collaborations with American colleagues. Professor Gilmore is married with three children.

	Ian M Gould Ian Gould is a consultant clinical microbiologist at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He is also Honorary Professor of Public Health, Epidemiology and Microbiology at the University of Trnava. He is an editor or board member of several international journals and chairman, secretary or a council member of various national and international working parties, learned societies, and advisory boards on antibiotic resistance and policies. Ian Gould is an advisor on antibiotic resistance and prescribing for the Department of Health, the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, The International Organisation for Epizoonosis, the European Commission, The European Centre for Disease Control, and government agencies abroad. He is coordinator of the European Union projects ESAR and ARPAC.

No Image	Sir J A Muir Gray Sir Muir Gray is Director of the National Knowledge Service. The National Library for Health, a core service of the National Knowledge Service, will organise the best current knowledge and the National Knowledge service will deliver it to staff and patients wherever and whenever they need it. He has recently been given the role of Chief Knowledge Officer for the NHS and is closely involved in the provision of knowledge not only to clinicians but also to patients and those who manage healthcare. In his previous post as Director of Research and Development for Anglia and Oxford Region, he was in a position to support the UK Cochrane Centre in its early days, and to set up the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. For 10 years he was Programmes Director for the UK National Screening Committee. Sir Muir Gray is the author of Evidence-Based Healthcare, the third edition of which is in preparation, and joint author of The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Practice. His most recent books are The Resourceful Patient, Evidence-Based Surgery,and How To Get Better Value Healthcare. Sir Muir Gray's most recent venture in 2008 has been to set up a charity called Knowledge Into Action. This is separate from his NHS work but is based on the same fundamental belief that we can improve health by the application of the best knowledge through the best systems. The charity has several programmes, including The Campaign for Greener Healthcare, The National Walking Campaign, and Oxford Health Systems. He has also started using digital broadcasting to share his experience. You can find out more on www.soundshealthy.org and www.knowledgeintoaction.org

No Image	Hajo Grundmann Hajo Grundmann is Head of the department of bacteriology at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and is a special professor at the University of Nottingham, UK. He holds the Chair for Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at the University of Groningen. He is also the project leader of the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (EARSS) funded by the European Commission and the Dutch Ministry of Health at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. His major research interests are the molecular evolution, epidemiology, population dynamics, and health impact of emerging antimicrobial resistance and HAIs, malaria and tuberculosis.

	Peter M Hawkey Peter Hawkey is a professor of clinical and public health bacteriology and honorary consultant at the University of Birmingham and Health Protection Agency West Midlands Public Health Laboratory, in the UK. His research interests are largely centred around the molecular evolution of beta-lactamases, aminoglycoside inactivating enzymes, and the TET(M) family of transposons. He also has interests in molecular typing methods and the molecular epidemiology of nosocomial bacteria. Current projects include the selective effects of different antimicrobials on the molecular evolution and epidemiology of extended spectrum beta-lactamases in the UK, India, and China.

	Alison Holmes Alison Holmes is a director of infection prevention and control and a consultant in infectious diseases at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She is also Reader in Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control at Imperial College. Her area of interest and research covers molecular epidemiology, antimicrobial prescribing, hospital acquired infection, organisational change to improve patient safety and the delivery of infection prevention, models of training and multi-disciplinary working, developing pragmatic surveillance systems, and international and refugee health.

	Hilary Humphreys Hilary Humphreys is a professor of clinical microbiology at The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and a consultant microbiologist to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin. For more than 20 years he has conducted research, published, and been professionally active in the area of healthcare-associated infection (HCAI), including the epidemiology and control of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the design and commissioning of operating theatres, and the management of infection in critically ill patients. He is currently leading an initiative under the auspices of the RCSI, to improve surgical practice through reducing surgical site and other infections.

No Image	Professor Sir Ian Kennedy Professor Sir Ian Kennedy LLD is a lawyer who, for the past few decades, has lectured and written on the law and the ethics of healthcare. He is currently Chairman of the Healthcare Commission. He is also Emeritus Professor of Health Law, Ethics, and Policy at the School of Public Policy, University College of London and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. He is a former Dean of the Law School (1986-96) at King's College London and President of the Centre of Medical Laws and Ethics, which he founded in 1978. He gave the Reith Lectures in 1980. He was a member of the GMC for 9 years and has been a member of the Medicines Commission and the Department of Health's advisory group on AIDS, Chairman of the public inquiry (1998-2001) into paediatric cardiac surgery at Bristol, a government inquiry (1997), into xenotransplantation (the use of animal-to-human transplants), and an inquiry (1998) that recommended changing the law relating to quarantine for animals being brought into the UK from abroad. He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) (2002) and a Fellow of both King's College London and University College London. He was awarded an Honorary DSc by the University of Glasgow in July 2003. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners (2002), Royal College of Physicians (2003), Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (2004), Royal College of Anaesthetists (2004), and Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (2005). He was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine by the University of Birmingham (2006). He was Knighted for services to medical law and bioethics in 2002.

	Kevin Kerr Kevin Kerr is a consultant microbiologist and Director of Infection Prevention and Control for Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust. He is an honorary clinical professor of microbiology at the Hull York Medical School, and is a visiting professor at the School of Engineering Design and Technology at the University of Bradford. His research interests include the development engineering-based solutions to the problem of healthcare-associated infection with current projects funded by NHS Estates and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council as well as industrial partners.

	Marion Koopmans Marion Koopmans is professor of Public Health Virology at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. She is also coordinator of a European research and surveillance network on enteric viruses, and is chair of the virology division of the diagnostic laboratory for infectious diseases at RIVM. Her responsibilities include reference diagnostics, syndromic surveillance, and emergency preparedness for viral diseases, including research aimed at improving the response capacity of a public health laboratory.

No Image	Professor Martin McKee Martin McKee qualified in medicine in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with subsequent training in internal medicine and public health. He is Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he co-directs the European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition (ECOHOST), a WHO Collaborating Centre that comprises the largest team of researchers working on health and health policy in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He is also research director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, a unique partnership of universities, national and regional governments, and international agencies. He has published over 430 scientific papers, 30 books, and 75 book chapters. He is one of the editors of the European Journal of Public Health and a member of numerous editorial boards, as well as being an editorial consultant to The Lancet. He has been invited to give many endowed lectures, including the Milroy Lecture (Royal College of Physicians), the Cochrane Lecture (UK Society for Social Medicine), Ferenc Bojan Lecture (European Public Health Association), and DARE Lecture (UK Faculty of Public Health). He sits on a number of advisory boards in Europe and North America, in both the public and private sectors. He is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK and Ireland and the UK Faculty of Public Health. His contributions to European health policy have been recognised by, among others, election to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences, and the US Institute of Medicine, by the award of honorary doctorates from Hungary and The Netherlands and visiting professorships at the Universities of Zagreb and Belgrade. He is a distinguished international scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2003 he was awarded the Andrija Stampar medal for contributions to European public health and in 2005 was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by HM Queen Elizabeth II. He writes a regular blog.

	Michael Millar Michael Millar is a medical microbiologist based at Barts and the London NHS Trust. He has a particular interest in the prevention of infection including the ethical and economic issues raised by infectious diseases and the strategies to control those diseases.

	Andrew Pearson Andrew is the acting head of the department of healthcare-associated infection and antimicrobial resistance in the Centre for Infections at the Health Protection Agency in London. His responsibilities for the past 5 years include the development and management of the DH mandatory surveillance programmes on MRSA bacteraemia and Clostridium difficile, and the development of web-enabled and public-reporting systems for mandatory surveillance information.

	Didier Pittet Didier Pittet is the hospital epidemiologist and director of the infection control programme at the University of Geneva Hospitals and Clinics, Geneva, Switzerland; a professor of medicine and hospital epidemiology at the University of Geneva; and an attending physician in adult and paediatric infectious diseases at the University of Geneva Hospitals. His current research interests include the epidemiology and prevention of nosocomial infections (in particular nosocomial bloodstream and catheter-related infections, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, infections due to coagulase-negative staphylococci, impact and costs of infection, sepsis, infections in critically ill patients, especially infections due to Candida spp), and the application of molecular laboratory techniques to the investigation of nosocomial infection. Other major interests include methods for improving compliance with the use of barrier precautions and hand hygiene practices as well as methods for improving the quality of patient care and patient safety. He is also involved in additional research on the epidemiology of infectious diseases.

	Robert L Skov Robert Skov is the head of the staphylococcus laboratory at the National Center for Antimicrobials and Infection Control, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark. His main research interests are staphylococcal resistance and epidemiology and susceptibility testing. He is has been member of national and international expert groups on staphylococci and antibiotic resistance.

	Evelina Tacconelli Evelina Tacconelli is currently Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Università Cattolica Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy, and has extensive research experience in the field of antimicrobial use and resistance. She has been a lecturer of medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, and has received awards from the University of London and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases for research excellence. Evelina serves on the Editorial Board of the Clinical Microbiology and Infection, the official publication of the ESCMID, and is leading the workpage on the risk assessment for MRSA within the European ISC MRSA working group.

	Kevin Towner Kevin Towner is a consultant clinical scientist in the department of clinical microbiology at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, and has just finished a 5-year term as Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Microbiology and Infection on behalf of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. He has held numerous research grants and has published extensively on his main research interests, which include the molecular identification and typing of bacteria, molecular diagnostics, antibiotic resistance, and the clinical importance and epidemiology of Acinetobacter.

	Christina M J E Vandenbroucke-Grauls Christina Vandenbroucke-Grauls is President of the Society "Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskund" which publishes the main Dutch medical journal. Her special field of interest is infection control and hospital epidemiology. She pioneered the Dutch "Search and Destroy" strategy for MRSA in The Netherlands and performed research in the field of infection control, hospital epidemiology, molecular epidemiology, and molecular diagnostics.

No Image	Mark Wilcox Mark Wilcox is a consultant at the General Infirmary; a professor of medical microbiology at the University of Leeds; and is the head of microbiology and a clinical director of pathology and infection control doctor for The Leeds Teaching Hospitals.His research projects include several areas of healthcare-associated infection, in particular Clostridium difficile infection, staphylococcal infection, and the clinical development of new antimicrobial agents.