Five-year surveillance of patients with communicable diseases nursed in isolation

During a five year surveillance program of patients with communicable diseases nursed in isolation, we gathered information on 2880 patients who were nursed in isolation for 28 145 days, from January 1994 to December 1998. The mean number of patients nursed in isolation was 575.4 (range, 427-709) per year. On average 2.4% of patients admitted yearly to the University Medical Center (UMC) were nursed in isolation. The mean number of days nursed in isolation was 9.8 days per patient.1996 was a peak year in isolations due to outbreaks of gentamicin-resistant enterobacteriaceae (GRB) and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The main reasons for requiring isolation were: GRB, MRSA (proven and suspected cases), Clostridium difficile, viral infections and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Registration of quantitative data on nursing patients in isolation, as presented in this paper, makes it possible to gain insight into the type and number of isolation indications, the required isolation room capacity on different wards, the workload of healthcare workers resulting from isolation and the trends in incidence of communicable diseases.