Using Electronic Health Information to Risk-Stratify Rates of Clostridium difficile Infection in US Hospitals

Autor: Ying P. Tabak, Richard S. Johannes, Xiaowu Sun, L. Clifford McDonald, Marya D. Zilberberg, Dawn M. Sievert, Karen G. Derby
Rok vydání: 2011
Předmět:
Zdroj: Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. 32:649-655
ISSN: 1559-6834
0899-823X
0195-9417
Popis: Background.Expanding hospitalized patients' risk stratification for Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is important for improving patient safety. We applied definitions for hospital-onset (HO) and community-onset (CO) CDI to electronic data from 85 hospitals between January 2007 and June 2008 to identify factors associated with higher HO CDI rates.Methods.Nonrecurrent CDI cases were identified among adult (≥18-year-old) inpatients by a positive C. difficile toxin assay result more than 8 weeks after any previous positive result. Case categories included HO, CO-hospital associated (CO-HA), CO-indeterminate hospital association (CO-IN), and CO–non–hospital associated (CO-NHA). C. difficile testing intensity (CDTI) was defined as the total number of C. difficile tests performed, normalized to the number of patients with at least 1 C. difficile toxin test recorded. We calculated both the incidence density and the prevalence of CDI where appropriate. We fitted a multivariable Poisson model to identify factors associated with higher HO CDI rates.Results.Among 1,351,156 unique patients with 2,022,213 admissions, 9,803 cases of CDI were identified; of these, 50.6% were HO, 17.4% were CO-HA, 9.0% were CO-IN, and 23.0% were CO-NHA. The incidence density of HO was 6.3 per 10,000 patient-days. The prevalence of CO CDI on admission was, per 10,000 admissions, 8.4 for CO-HA, 4.4 for CO-IN, and 11.1 for CO-NHA. Factors associated (P< .0001) with higher HO CDI rates included older age, higher CO-NHA prevalence on admission, and increased CDTI.Conclusion.Electronic health information can be leveraged to risk-stratify HO CDI rates by patient age and CO-NHA prevalence on admission. Hospitals should optimize diagnostic testing to improve patient care and measured CDI rates.
Databáze: OpenAIRE