American journal of infection control
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Am J Infect Control · Oct 2014
Factors influencing intensive care nurses' knowledge and attitudes regarding ventilator-associated pneumonia and oral care practice in intubated patients in Croatia.
Adequate oral care in intubated patients may reduce occurrence of ventilator-associated pneumonia. The purpose of this study was to explore knowledge, attitudes, and oral care practice in Croatian intensive care units and influencing factors. ⋯ Performed oral hygiene measures are mostly inappropriate. There is a need to improve the knowledge of ventilator-associated pneumonia and oral care.
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Am J Infect Control · Oct 2014
Patient empowerment begins with knowledge: consumer perceptions and knowledge sources for hand hygiene compliance rates.
A survey of 1,000 US consumers quantified their knowledge of health care worker hand hygiene compliance, their information sources on hand hygiene rates, and their past behavior of asking health care workers to perform hand hygiene. Sixty-nine percent of respondents believed compliance is above 50%; 17% of respondents had asked a health care worker to perform hand hygiene. Our findings suggest that an organized plan of disclosure about hand hygiene rates may be a way to empower through knowledge.
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Am J Infect Control · Oct 2014
Multicenter StudySurgical site infection rates in 4 cities in Colombia: findings of the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC).
Surgical site infections (SSIs) are a threat to patient safety. However, there are no available data on SSI rates stratified by surgical procedure (SP) in Colombia. ⋯ Compared with CDC-NHSN rates, SSIs rates in our study hospitals were higher in most types of SPs, whereas compared with INICC, they were similar in 5 of the analyzed types, and higher in 4 types. This study represents an important advance toward knowledge of epidemiology in Colombia that will allow us to introduce targeted interventions.
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Am J Infect Control · Oct 2014
Implementation of electronic surveillance of catheter use and catheter-associated urinary tract infection at Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) hospitals.
Manual surveillance of indwelling urinary catheters (IUCs) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) is resource intense. ⋯ A centralized electronic surveillance strategy for CAUTI is feasible and sustainable. Baseline performance of participating sites was exemplary, with very low SIRs at baseline.
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Am J Infect Control · Oct 2014
Evaluating the impact of mandatory public reporting on participation and performance in a program to reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections: evidence from a national patient safety collaborative.
It is not clear whether mandatory reporting influences the efforts and performance of hospitals to prevent hospital-acquired infections. This study examines whether mandatory reporting impacted participation and performance in reducing central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) in a national patient safety collaborative. ⋯ Mandatory reporting requirements may spark hospitals to turn to proven infection prevention interventions to improve CLABSI rates. Reporting requirements do not teach sites how to reduce rates. ICUs need both motivation and facilitation to reach consumer expectations for infection prevention.