National Surveillance of Healthcare-Associated Infections in Home Care Settings-Feasible or Not?

• Published in: Journal of community health nursing Vol. 20; no. 4; pp. 223 - 231
• Main Authors: Manangan, Lilia P., Pearson, Michele L., Tokars, Jerome I., Miller, Elaine, Jarvis, William R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc 01-12-2003; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
• Subjects: Catheters; Epidemiology; Health care industry; Health outcomes; Home care; Home care services; Infection control; Infections; Nosocomial infections; Patient surveillance; Patients; Predisposing factors; Surveillance; USA
• ISSN: 0737-0016; 1532-7655
• DOI: 10.1207/S15327655JCHN2004_03

Despite the phenomenal growth of home care, the epidemiology of healthcare-associated infections in home care settings has not been defined. Therefore, a national system for surveillance of healthcare-associated infections in home care is needed not only to provide useful data on incidence and types of infections, but also to better identify risk factors for infection and develop national benchmarks for comparing infection rates and assessing prevention interventions. However, surveillance in home care settings poses several unique challenges, including lack of nationally accepted standard definitions of infection and methods of surveillance data collection, loss of patient follow-up, lack of trained infection control personnel in home care settings, difficulty capturing clinical and laboratory data, and difficulty obtaining numerator and denominator data for calculation of infection rates. In spite of these challenges, several groups are collecting data on healthcare-associated infections in home care or other outpatient areas. The collective information from these experiences may be useful in developing a national home healthcare surveillance system. Collaboration between home healthcare agencies, state and federal health agencies, private industry, and national or managed care organizations is essential to make this surveillance system feasible and functional.