Surveillance of catheter-related infections: the supplementary role of the microbiology laboratory

BMC Infectious Diseases

Table 1 Comparision between hospital-based CLABSI rates and laboratory-based MC-CRBSI rates

Ward	A	B	C	D	E	F	Pooled
Hospital-based surveillance
Number of CLABSI* events	0	5	5	7	7	1	25
CLABSI incidence per 1 000 catheter days	0	5.6	4.9	7.7	11.3	6.5	5.7
Laboratory-based surveillance
Number of catheters submitted for culture	85	49	88	70	19	8	319
Number of catheters accompanied by BCs	44	10	77	52	6	8	197
Number of MC-CRBSI events	10	2	13	12	3	4	44
MC-CRBSI incidence per 1 000 catheter days	12.9	2.2	12.7	13.2	4.9	25.8	10.1
MC-CRBSI prevalence per 1 000 admissions	30.1	11.2	65.6	122.5	19.6	22	38.5
Denominators ^#
Number of central line days	776	891	1023	912	617	155	4374
Number of patient admissions	332	179	198	98	153	182	1142

A = High care, multidisciplinary ward; B = Neurosurgery ICU; C = Trauma and Surgery ICU; D = Medical and Pulmonology ICU; E = Cardiothoracic ICU; F = Paediatric Medical ICU.
CLABSI = central line-associated bloodstream infection; BCs = blood cultures; MC-CRBSI = microbiologically confirmed catheter-related bloodstream infection.
*CLABSI definition from Best Care…Always! = Occurrence of a primary bloodstream infection in a patient with a central line in situ or where infection occurs within 48 h of the removal of the central line, where no other possible source of the bloodstream infection could be identified.
^#The number of in-patient days was only available for the hospital as a whole and could therefore not be broken down per ward.

ISSN: 1471-2334