Protecting the patient and the environment--new aspects and challenges in hospital infection control.

Environmental pollution has become a major concern for the future of life on our planet; medical care, especially in hospitals, contributes significantly to this pollution. The increasing usage of highly-developed medical devices, drugs and disposable products are a drain on natural resources as well as financial ones. In this situation, it is a major task for hospital epidemiologists to maintain high standards of hygiene while reducing environmental pollution, reducing consumption of limited natural resources, and minimizing costs. The reduction of hospital waste, the control of polluting and toxic emissions, the avoidance of unnecessary disinfection procedures and disposables, the implementation of energy and water saving technologies are practicable measures in hospital ecology. To realize a sustainable development within hospitals, it is necessary that the need to maintain a balance between effective infection control and a good ecological environment is recognized and supported by health-care workers and the hospital management.