Evidence-Based Nursing Infection control

Rates of hospital-acquired and healthcare-associated MRSA declined in the USA between 2005 and 2008

Guilbeau, J. R. — 2011-03-18T16:59:33-07:00

Purpose

The prevention of infections is an important safety priority in healthcare and the communityand in particular, the drug-resistant pathogens are of major concern. To date, hospital infections are a huge burden to society, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections are a major focus of healthcare providers. As MRSA is a known pathogen of public importance, there is interest in determining whether there is change in incidence rates in patient populations. There is an estimated 1.7 million healthcare-associated infections that are associated with nearly 99 000 deaths in US hospitals.1 Healthcare-associated infections in general, and MRSA in particular, continue to burden patients and society, and prevention of infection has been a priority of healthcare providers. Data on invasive MRSA infections were collected from participating Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Emerging Infections Program/Active Bacterial Core surveillance (ABCs) system that receive laboratory reports on invasive MRSA...

Infection Probability Score shows 59.4% specificity and 74.3% sensitivity for predicting infection in haematology-oncology patients

Bearman, G. — 2011-03-18T16:59:33-07:00

Apostolpolou and colleagues assessed the predictive power of three systems: Infection Probability Score (IPS), Apache II and Karnovsky score for the onset of healthcare-associated infection in haematology–oncology patients. The sample consisted of 102 hospitalised patients, 32 of whom developed a healthcare-associated infection, the most frequent of which was a bloodstream infection (n=17). At a cut-off value of 10, the IPS demonstrated a healthcare-associated infection prediction sensitivity of 59.4% and a specificity of 74.3%, surpassing that of the APACHE II and Karnofsky scoring system.

Peres Bota1 initially developed the IPS to assess the probability of infection in critically ill patients. The IPS is simple, as the variables such as temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, white blood cell count, C-reactive protein and sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA)can be obtained routinely and are well known to healthcare providers. Apostolpolou and colleagues successfully applied the IPS to a non–intensive care unit...