Help Centre
How to use IPC360, from signing in to presenting a trend to hospital management.
Try: start an assessment · draft · score · hospital · evidence · trends · executive report · print
Getting started, What IPC360 is, signing in, and finding your way around.
- What IPC360 isIPC360 is a platform for assessing, monitoring and strengthening a hospital’s Infection Prevention and Control programme using a structured WHO IPCAF-based methodology.
- The WHO IPCAF-based methodologyIPC360 follows the WHO Infection Prevention and Control Assessment Framework: eight core components, 81 indicators, scored out of 800 and interpreted against four published levels.
- Signing inThere is one sign-in page for everybody: doctors use their email address, administrators use the administrator ID they were issued.
- Changing your initial passwordAn account created by an administrator has a temporary password; IPC360 asks you to replace it the first time you sign in, before anything else.
- Understanding your dashboardYour dashboard answers three questions: where you are assessing, what you have open, and what you scored last time.
- Your primary hospitalYour primary hospital is the facility your administrator assigned to you; it is preselected whenever you start a new assessment.
- Signing out safelySelect Sign out in the top bar when you finish, especially on a shared or ward computer; your session also expires on its own.
- Using the Help CentreSearch IPC360 guidance in your own words, browse it by task, and follow related articles without needing an account or leaving the product.
- The welcome guideA six-step introduction shown on your dashboard the first time you sign in; you can dismiss it and reopen it from the Help Centre at any time.
Assessments, Starting, answering, saving and finalizing an assessment.
- Starting an assessmentSelect New assessment, choose the framework, the hospital and the assessment type, and IPC360 creates a draft with every indicator ready to answer.
- Selecting the hospital being assessedEvery assessment records which facility it describes; your primary hospital is preselected, and you can choose another facility instead.
- Assessing another hospitalYou can assess a facility other than your primary hospital; the assessment stays yours, and the facility assessed is recorded separately on the report.
- Draft assessmentsA draft is an assessment you are still answering. Your answers are saved as you go, it has no score of record, and it appears in no trend until you finalize it.
- Resuming an assessmentUse “Continue where you left off” on your dashboard, or open the assessment from the Assessments list and select Continue.
- Answering indicatorsEach indicator offers a set of answers with points attached; select the one that describes your hospital honestly, and add a comment where the situation needs explaining.
- EvidenceEvidence is a document, photograph or record that supports an answer; it is uploaded against the indicator and verified by somebody other than the person who supplied it.
- Completing sectionsThe core component list shows how much of each section is answered, so you can see what remains before the assessment can be finalized.
- Finalizing an assessmentFinalizing fixes the score as the assessment’s permanent record and makes it available to reports and trends; it moves through Submitted and Evidence review first.
- What each assessment status meansDraft and In progress are still being answered; Submitted and Evidence review are being checked; Finalized has a score of record.
Understanding results, Scores, levels, strengths, gaps and what they do and do not mean.
- Your overall scoreThe overall score is the sum of your eight component scores, out of 800, calculated from the points attached to the answers you selected.
- Component scoresEach of the eight WHO core components is scored out of 100, which is what shows you where your programme is strong and where it is weak.
- Your IPC levelThe IPC level is the WHO band your total score falls into: Inadequate, Basic, Intermediate or Advanced.
- StrengthsYour strongest components are those scoring highest against their maximum. These are the parts of the programme worth protecting and building on.
- GapsA gap is an explicit record of a weak or missing answer, traceable back to the indicator that produced it and ranked by priority.
- Improvement opportunities and recommendationsRecommendations are produced by stated rules from your own answers, each one stamped with the indicator that triggered it.
- What the score meansThe score is a structured summary of the answers recorded for your programme at one point in time, comparable with your own earlier assessments.
- What the score does not meanThe score is not a certification, not an accreditation, and not a statement that a hospital is clinically safe.
- WHO minimum requirementsThe WHO minimum requirements are counted separately from the IPCAF score, as requirements met or not met, and are never mixed into the total out of 800.
Trends, Comparing assessments and tracking progress over time.
- Comparing assessmentsTrends compares your completed assessments, overall and component by component, and states the change in points rather than implying it with a line.
- Reading an improvementAn improvement is shown as a positive change in points, the number of components that improved, and, where it applies, a move to a higher IPC level.
- Reading a declineA fall in score is stated as plainly as a rise; it usually means either a genuine deterioration or a more honest assessment than the last one.
- A hospital’s progress over timeThe trend chart plots every completed assessment for a hospital against the four IPC bands, with the most recent point marked as Latest.
- Why only completed assessments appearA trend needs measurements, and only a finalized assessment has a score of record; plotting a half-answered draft would show data entry as improvement.
Executive reports, Opening, reading, printing and presenting reports.
- Opening a reportReports are available for finalized assessments; open Reports in the sidebar, or select Executive report from your dashboard.
- What each report section meansThe executive report runs from the facility profile and the result, through components, comparison and findings, to the recommendations and the basis of the report.
- Printing and exportingUse your browser’s print dialog (Ctrl+P, or Cmd+P on a Mac) to print a report or save it as a PDF; registers can also be exported as CSV.
- Presenting a report to managementLead with the score and the level, name the two or three components behind the shortfall, and finish with what is being done and what is needed.
Account & activity, Your profile, password, activity and access.
- Requesting an IPC360 accountIPC360 accounts are provisioned by your organisation or by the MAUK Solutions team. There is no public sign-up, so a new hospital or a new user is set up by asking for one.
- Your profileYour name, email address, job title and hospital are held on your account and are maintained by your administrator.
- My activityMy activity lists what you have done in IPC360, assessments created, drafts saved, assessments finalized and reports generated.
- Your assessment historyThe Assessments list holds every assessment you have created or been named on, with its status, hospital, date and score.
- Changing your passwordSelect Change password in the top bar; a new password must be at least 12 characters and signs out every other session on your account.
- Access issuesIf a page refuses you, your role does not carry that permission; if your hospital or role is wrong, an administrator has to change it.
IPC & IPCAF concepts, The framework itself: core components, scoring and levels.
- The eight IPC core componentsThe framework divides an IPC programme into eight core components, each scored out of 100: programme, guidelines, education, surveillance, multimodal strategies, monitoring and feedback, workload and staffing, and environment and materials.
- How IPCAF scoring worksEach indicator answer carries points; the points within a component add up to a score out of 100, and the eight components add up to a total out of 800.
- The four IPC levels explainedInadequate, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced are the four published bands, each with a WHO description of what that level of implementation looks like.
- IPC360 and WHOIPC360 implements a methodology based on the WHO IPCAF; it is not a WHO product and is not certified or endorsed by WHO.
Troubleshooting, When something does not work the way you expect.
- I cannot sign inCheck that you are using the right identifier and password, and ask your administrator to reissue the password if needed. If you do not have an account at all, see Requesting an IPC360 account.
- I cannot find an assessmentYou see assessments you created, are the assessor on, or are named on. A colleague’s private assessment is not visible to you by default.
- The hospital I need is not listedYou can only choose hospitals you are assigned to; ask your administrator to assign you, or record the assessment against a facility name instead.
- Evidence will not uploadCheck the file size and type, and try a single file at a time; if it still fails, report a problem with the file type and size.
- A report will not print correctlyUse the browser’s own print dialog rather than a screenshot, and enable background graphics if the brand header does not appear.
Support, Contacting MAUK Solutions, reporting problems, and the Assistant.
- Contacting MAUK SolutionsThe MAUK Solutions team can help with IPC360 setup, access, product support and technical issues, by email, and by WhatsApp where a number has been configured.
- Reporting a problem or sending feedbackUse Report a problem to send a bug, a question, a missing feature or a suggestion to MAUK Solutions, with the page you were on attached automatically.
- Using IPC360 AssistantIPC360 Assistant answers questions about using IPC360, about IPCAF concepts, and about your own assessment results, and hands you to the MAUK Solutions team when it cannot help.
- What should we work on before the next assessment?Start with the lowest-scoring components and the highest-ranked gaps, and prefer the ones where the element is absent rather than merely inconsistent.
Still need help?
Ask IPC360 Assistant for anything covered here, and for an explanation of your own assessment results. If it cannot help, it will put you in touch with the MAUK Solutions team.
A Product of MAUK Solutions
IPC360Assess. Improve. Protect.
Assessment methodology based on the WHO Infection Prevention and Control Assessment Framework (IPCAF). IPC360 is not a WHO product and is not certified or endorsed by WHO.
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