Designing and Implementing National Program of Health Electronic Surveillance Network (HESN); Infection Control Module in Saudi Arabia

Surveillance of health care associated infections is the keystone of Infection Prevention and Control program in any health care setting. Without a reliable surveillance system, it is difficult to monitor the health care associated infections (device associated as well as non-device associated infections). The Infection Control Practitioners (ICPs) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia used to collect the Surveillance data manually almost more than a decade back, and then shifted to an electronic Surveillance System few years back, International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC). As conventional manual surveillance requires resources and standardization of definitions. Finally, a national, web based, semi-automated system of Health Electronic Surveillance Network (HESN) was developed in the year 2012, but the Surveillance module of Health care associated infections was started in late 2016. Pilot study was done initially for the period of few months in five MOH Hospitals and later 96 MOH Hospitals were added gradually by the end of year 2019. The system is first of its kind as it covers certain public health modules including surveillance, infectious diseases, immunizations of newborns, needle stick injuries, blood and body fluid exposures and dialysis events surveillance. The data is entered by the Infection control department in HESN, followed by Regional Coordinators and supervised by the office of General Directorate of Infection Prevention and Control. Data validation is done by the internal and external validation teams and surprise audit visits to the hospitals. In addition to advantages of being quick, safe and online data management, there are certain limitations as the system is new for most of the ICPs. Therefore, with the passage of time, almost all the Infection control practitioners will adopt it well.