Clinical Strategies for Preventing Healthcare-Associated Infections

Dear Colleagues,

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) continue to pose a major global threat to patient safety and healthcare quality. These infections occur in a variety of clinical settings and are associated with increased morbidity, mortality and financial burden for both patients and healthcare systems.

This Special Issue of the Healthcare aims to gather high-quality contributions that explore effective strategies for the prevention of HAIs. We welcome manuscripts that investigate the prevalence and distribution of HAIs, as well as their most common clinical forms. Submissions should also examine the primary microbial agents involved, antimicrobial resistance patterns and the evolving epidemiology of these infections.

We are particularly interested in articles that propose or evaluate specific prevention measures, such as infection-control protocols, antimicrobial-stewardship programs and hygiene practices, as well as how these impact patient-safety outcomes. Contributions focusing on the development or application of tools to assess infection risk, such as scoring systems or predictive models, are also encouraged. Furthermore, we invite forward-looking perspectives that address future challenges and innovations in the field, including technological, organizational and policy-level interventions.

Recent research emphasize that alongside conventional infection-control measures, emerging approaches, such as artificial-intelligence assisted diagnostics, microbiome-based therapies, phage-therapy and a One-Health perspective linking environmental change to antimicrobial resistance, may play increasing roles in combating HAIs.

We encourage original research articles and reviews that advance the knowledge and implementation of infection-prevention strategies in healthcare environments.

We look forward to receiving your valuable contributions to this timely and important topic.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Journal of Clinical Medicine.

Dr. Monica Marilena Țânțu
Prof. Dr. Rogozea Liliana Marcela
Dr. Corneliu Ovidiu Vrancianu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.