• Eur J Emerg Med · Oct 2015

    Comparative Study

    Infection prevention practices in Swedish emergency departments: results from a cross-sectional survey.

    • Lisa Yanagizawa-Drott, Lisa Kurland, and Jeremiah D Schuur.
    • aDepartment of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital bDepartment of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA cDepartment of Clinical Science and Education, Karolinska Institutet dDepartment of Emergency Medicine, Södersjukhuset, Stockholm, Sweden.
    • Eur J Emerg Med. 2015 Oct 1; 22 (5): 338-42.

    ObjectiveHealthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Emergency departments (EDs) are a potential source of HAIs as they are the site for large volumes of patients in tight quarters and often focus on immediate life threats over prevention. We aimed to estimate the extent to which Swedish EDs have adopted evidence-based measures to prevent HAIs. The second aim was to identify predictors of high hand hygiene compliance.Materials And MethodsWe developed a survey on the basis of an instrument used in a US survey in 2011. We modified the survey to reflect Swedish ED practice, and emailed it to ED directors between February and April 2012. We calculated proportions, odds ratios, and 95% confidence intervals, and used logistic regression to adjust for independent variables.ResultsWe received responses from 59 of Sweden's 72 EDs (82%). Thirty-nine percent of EDs participate in a project to improve hand hygiene compliance. Staff hand hygiene compliance rates were audited at least monthly in 45% of EDs. Forty-three percent reported a compliance rate of 80% or more. The only independent predictor of greater than 80% hand hygiene compliance was auditing compliance frequently - at least monthly (odds ratio 6.3, 95% confidence interval 1.7-24, P=0.01). A majority of Swedish EDs (58%) have a written policy for the appropriate use of urinary catheters. Twenty-one percent participate in a project to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections.ConclusionA minority of Swedish EDs are participating in projects to address hand hygiene and catheter-associated urinary tract infection. Frequent auditing of hand hygiene compliance may improve compliance rates.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…