Infectious Disease: Health Care-Associated Infections

Health care-associated infections (HAIs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality, with 2 million US patients per year developing HAIs. This results in 90,000 deaths and billions of dollars in preventable expenses annually. Common HAIs include central line-associated bloodstream infection, catheter-related urinary tract infection, surgical site infection, hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection, Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), and others. Many factors contribute to HAIs, including inadequate hand hygiene by health care workers, inappropriate antibiotic use, increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), suboptimal disinfection and cleaning of hospital rooms and equipment, and use of invasive medical devices. HAP and VAP together represent the most common HAIs. Control of HAIs involves high- and low-tech solutions, including pulsed xenon light as a room disinfection adjunct, improving health care worker adherence to hand hygiene and standard precautions, as well as regular cleaning of cell phones and stethoscopes. Antibiotic stewardship programs have been shown to reduce inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics, a significant contributor to MDROs and CDI. Bundled interventions to control MRSA and CDI have been effective. Artificial intelligence applications likely will be involved in identification of patients at risk of HAIs in the future.