Which Surveillance of Healthcare-Care Associated Infections in Intensive Care Units in 2018?

Abstract

Surveillance of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) is a priority in intensive care units (ICU), a specialty with the highest prevalence of HAI because of critical patients and their exposure to invasive devices. Surveillance of HAI has three objectives: describe the epidemiology and incidence of HAIs; assess the impact of prevention measures; and detect outbreaks or emerging infectious diseases. Specific or standardized methods can be used for HAIs monitoring. Although surveillance is an essential part of an effective infection prevention and control program, manual surveillance consumes too much time for clinicians and infection control teams, limiting the time available for education and HAIs prevention. Automated surveillance is presented as a method with good performances and time effectiveness. Several components are necessary to produce reliable results: use of standardized definitions and methodology, investment in electronic infrastructure to make patient follow-up easier; and leadership of clinicians in surveillance. This article reviews the methodology of HAIs standardized surveillance used in ICU, the objectives of epidemiological surveillance as well as the reliability of the collected data, and finally, the advantages of developing automated surveillance of HAIs in ICU.