Study reveals ICUs major source for Healthcare Associated Infections

As per a study the ICUs in the hospitals are the hot beds for Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) infections that may cause adverse outcomes. ICU based surveillance, coupled with IPC will help in the reduction of overall AMR in individual hospitals, said the study “Leading Pan India Network on Healthcare Associated Infections & Infection Control”.

The study led by JPNA Trauma Center said that 95% HAIs are Device associated and surgical site infections. The report provides comprehensive details of blood stream infections (BSIs), Urinary tract infections (UTIs), and Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP) reported from January, 2022 to December, 2022 from a network of 39 hospitals across India. The network hospitals in this report are part of the ICMR’s AMR network and hospitals.

During the period from January, 2022 to December, 2022, a total of 106 ICUs from the 39 Centres reported Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI) rates to our centralized database. Medical and Neonatal ICUs accounted for 17.9 and 14.2% of the total ICUs in our network. Six (5.7%) ICUs in the network during this period were dedicated COVID ICUS.

A total of 1.747 episodes of bloodstream infections and 539 episodes of urinary tract infections were reported, accounting for the total BSI rate to be 5.08 per 1,000 patient days and total UTI rate to be 1.63 per 1,000 patient days. A fatal outcome (14-day outcome) was reported in 44.3% of 85ts and 23,29% UTI cases.

However, the study highlighted that this is not the attributable BSI or UTI mortality, since other predisposing factors, underlying critical illness and other infections also contribute to patient’s mortality in the ICUs.

“The AMR-HAI burden is an important metric, considering the fact that ICUs are the hot beds for AMR infections, which may cause adverse outcomes. ICU based surveillance, coupled with IPC will help in the reduction of overall AMR in individual hospitals. This HAI Surveillance work is primarily ICU based, considering the high rate of device utilization in the ICUs. The most common ICUs represented in this network are Medical. Neonatal, Paediatric Medical and Surgical ICUs”, the study has said.