which are appropriate health facilities we need to prevent illnesses?
Answers
The occurrence and undesirable complications from health care–associated infections (HAIs) have been well recognized in the literature for the last several decades.
The occurrence of HAIs continues to escalate at an alarming rate. HAIs originally referred to those infections associated with admission in an acute-care hospital (formerly called a nosocomial infection), but the term now applies to infections acquired in the continuum of settings where persons receive health care (e.g., long-term care, home care, ambulatory care).
Since the early 1980s HAI surveillance has monitored ongoing trends of infection in health care facilities.8 With the application of published evidence-based infection control strategies, a decreasing trend in certain intensive care unit (ICU) health care-associated infections has been reported through national infection control surveillance9 over the last 10 years, although there has also been an alarming increase of microorganism isolates with antimicrobial resistance.
Another factor emerging to motivate health care facilities to maximize HAI prevention efforts is the growing public pressure on State legislators to enact laws requiring hospitals to disclose hospital-specific morbidity and mortality rates.