About GMS Hygiene and Infection Control
Aims & Scope
Infection prevention and control is involved in the complete spectrum of medical treatment, diagnostics, and preventive aspects as well as patient and healthcare-worker (HCW) safety. Specifically, healthcare associated infections (HAI) are a global challenge for the 21st century. The journal GMS Hygiene and Infection Control (GMS HIC) is designed to foster both understanding and practice in the field of infection control with the focus on the prevention of HAI and related aspects of hospital hygiene. Hence, not only scientific articles on the prevention of HAI, including improvement of defense by vaccination and good nutrition, are of interest, but also new findings on the design of life-promoting environments in healthcare facilities to guarantee surroundings conducive to health. Of special interest are articles on the efficacy of antimicrobial agents and measures (sterilization, disinfection, antisepsis, cleaning), infection prevention by probiotics, reprocessing of medical devices, antibiotic and antiseptic stewardship, etiology, risk factors, epidemiology and surveillance of HAI, and quality management of hospital hygiene.
Until 2012 the journal was published under its German name “GMS Zeitschrift für Krankenhaushygiene”. By changing its name to GMS HIC, we wish to underline our international mission.
An important goal of hospital hygiene is the promotion of patient safety with the focus both on infection prevention and ensuring a healthy indoor environment in terms of chemical exposition. The latter includes residues of surface disinfectants, high-volatility organic compounds, surgical smoke, and hazards from molds. Furthermore, a healthy indoor environment avoids potentially detrimental physical exposures, for instance, to noise, climatic influences, and a lack of biodynamic lighting, while also promoting a safe drinking water supply and wastewater disposal even in catastrophic situations such as natural disasters and war. An additional target is the maintenance of mental health, by minimizing stress for patients and HCWs, and nurturing well-being through a hygienic environment. Another important focus is the question of how hospital hygiene can contribute to sustainable development through the careful, well-thought-out use of resources.
Considering the realization of infection control strategies, finding a balance in the conflict between individual freedom vs necessary social distancing and limiting infection-prevention resources to the extent necessary is closely linked to environmental and individual ethical challenges. Thus, ethical analyses become crucial for the implementation of a balanced and holistic concept of hospital hygiene. The protection of patients and HCWs in the hospital context is closely associated with compliance with anti-infective measures; the prerequisites for this lie at several individual and systemic levels of responsibility.
The evolution of the humans was accompanied by infectious diseases; the first form of protecting healthy people from diseased ones was segregation. With the currently increasing scarcity of water resources, archaeological findings on extraction of safe water and maintenance of resources can become of practical interest. In addition to their cultural-historical significance. Through archaeomicrobiology, the study of historical hygiene and microbiome evolution, we can delve into ancient microbial diversity, early hygiene practices, and how dietary and societal changes influenced our microbial symbionts. This multi-faceted approach enhances our overall understanding of infection control.
This open access journal provides a forum for the continuing exchange of information and opinions through contributions from scholars, professionals, policymakers, and others involved in infection control, including lawyers, specialists in environmental medicine, and experts in medical ethics and medical archeology.
GMS HIC and its international editorial board welcome articles from the entire field of infection prevention and control, ensuring a publication channel for important information on even unusual and selective aspects of this subject as well as for other hygienic aspects for patient and HCW safety. Concurrently, GMS HIC wishes to serve as platform for epidemiologic and other data relevant for infection control aspects in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, and Turkey, and other countries around the world, which are sometimes not accepted by other international journals due to their unique or highly selective topics.
The journal publishes research articles, review articles, guidelines, recommendations, consensus statements and case reports in English. Every submission is subject to a thorough peer review. The journal offers unlimited space for figures and tables. Furthermore, GMS HIC offers the opportunity to enrich the article with extensive multimedia data. Underlying research data may be published in the data repository Dryad.
GMS HIC is published within German Medical Science (GMS), the publication portal of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF), which is operated in cooperation with the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences.
The journal is listed in PubMed and its articles are deposited in the PubMed Central repository. GMS HIC is also covered by the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) of the Web of Science, since 2023 it has a Journal Impact Factor of 3.0.
The balancing act of prevention
Prevention is the art of balancing common sense and painful experience, foresight and complicated or banal evidence, ethics and politics, the obvious and the unexpected.
Prevention is the balance of responsibility, reason, convenience, costs for which no one voluntarily accepts responsibility.
Prevention is the challenge to prevent greater harm with lesser efforts, instead of suffering its consequences and dealing with them with disproportionately greater effort.
There is no silver bullet for prevention. That makes it difficult.
Prevention has an agonizing latency with benefits that lie in the uncertain distance.
It requires conviction, patience, painstaking analysis, courage, serendipity.
Prevention is rarely spectacular. Without passionate love, its vision suffocates in futile attempt.
Unfortunately, prevention is not a profit-making stock. Its multiple paths, detours, and uncertainties provoke the clash of opinions, separating the necessary from the unnecessary, efforts made as sacrificial offerings to preserve life.
As long as the struggle is not jeopardized by pretensions of power, vain self-promotion, care-taking incompetence, it has its chance.
The opportune moment, when it’s time to take the new hurdles of progress, must not be missed.
Axel Kramer
Editor in Chief
Editorial Board
| Editor: | |
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Axel Kramer, Prof. Dr. med. em.
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| Associate Editors: | |
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Sara Romano-Bertrand, PharmD, PhD |
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Julian-Camill Harnoß, PD Dr. med. |
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Duygu Percin, Prof. MD
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| Editorial Advisory Board: | |
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Asensio Vegas Angel, MD PhD |
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| Rajinder Pal Singh Bajwa, MD Division of Infectious Diseases, Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center 621 Tenth Street Niagara Falls, NY 14301, USA Phone: +1 7162784739 |
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Silvio Brusaferro, Prof. MD Phone: +39 0432 555216 |
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| Agnė Čivilytė, PhD Lithuanian Institute of History Department of Archeology Tilto g. 17 01101 Vilnius, Lithuania Phone: +37 061411552 ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8793-7255 |
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| Maren Eggers, PhD Laboratory Enders & colleagues MVZ Department of Viroloy Rosenbergstrasse 85 70193 Stuttgart, Germany Phone: +49 711 6357 136 |
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| Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio, Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. rer. med. University Hospital Bonn Institute for Medical Humanities Venusberg-Campus 1 / Building B61 53127 Bonn, Germany Phone: +49 228-287-15000 Mobile: +49 151 58280412 ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5888-3059 |
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Li Han, Prof. Dr. rer.nat. |
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Beata Kowalska-Krochmal, Dr. med. Phone: +48 607156427 |
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Pierre Parneix, Dr. |
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Arne Simon, PD Dr. med. habil. |
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Albert Nienhau, Prof. Dr.
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| Language editor: | |
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Kathleen Splieth, MBiol |
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Process of reviewing
GMS Hygiene and Infection Control confirms the submission of every manuscript. Each manuscript is subjected to a peer review process conducted by knowledgeable experts in the field serving as referees. The referees assess the originality and scientific quality of the presented data. At least two independent reviewers will carry out the evaluation separately for every manuscript. The experts remain anonymous towards the author, but also towards each other. Based on their assessment the editorial board finally decides the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript. This decision will be transmitted to the authors as soon as possible.
Abstracting/Indexing
GMS Hygiene and Infection Control is covered by the following abstracting/indexing services:
