Incidence of healthcare-associated infections in a tertiary hospital in Beijing, China: results from a real-time surveillance system

Abstract

Background: To quantify the five year incidence trend of all healthcare-associated infections (HAI) using a real-time HAI electronic surveillance system in a tertiary hospital in Beijing, China.

Methods: The real-time surveillance system scans the hospital’s electronic databases related to HAI (e.g. microbiological reports and antibiotics administration) to identify HAI cases. We conducted retrospective secondary analyses of the data exported from the surveillance system for inpatients with all types of HAIs from January 1st 2013 to December 31st 2017. Incidence of HAI is defined as the number of HAIs per 1000 patient-days. We modeled the incidence data using negative binomial regression.

Results: In total, 23361 HAI cases were identified from 633990 patients, spanning 6242375 patient-days during the 5-year period. Overall, the adjusted five-year HAI incidence rate had a marginal reduction from 2013 (4.10 per 1000 patient days) to 2017 (3.62 per 1000 patient days). The incidence of respiratory tract infection decreased significantly. However, the incidence rate of bloodstream infections and surgical site infection increased significantly. Respiratory tract infection (43.80%) accounted for the most substantial proportion of HAIs, followed by bloodstream infections (15.74%), and urinary tract infection (12.69%). A summer peak in HAIs was detected among adult and elderly patients.

Conclusions: This study shows how continuous electronic incidence surveillance based on existing hospital electronic databases can provide a practical means of measuring hospital-wide HAI incidence. The estimated incidence trends demonstrate the necessity for improved infection control measures related to bloodstream infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, non-intensive care patients, and non-device-associated HAIs, especially during summer months.