Device and surgical procedure-related infections in Canadian acute care hospitals, 2020-2024

Area of Science:

• Infectious Diseases
• Public Health
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) represent a substantial burden on the Canadian healthcare system.
• National surveillance of HAIs is conducted by the Canadian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance Program at sentinel acute care hospitals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the epidemiology of device- and surgical procedure-related HAIs in Canada from 2020 to 2024.
• To analyze trends in specific HAIs including central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) and surgical site infections (SSIs).

Main Methods:

• Data collected from up to 67 Canadian sentinel acute care hospitals between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2024.
• Analysis included intensive care unit central line-associated bloodstream infections (ICU-CLABSIs), hip and knee surgical site infections (SSIs), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunt SSIs, and pediatric cardiac SSIs.
• Presented case counts, rates, patient and hospital characteristics, pathogen distributions, and antimicrobial resistance data.

Main Results:

• A total of 1,846 device-related infections and 1,014 surgical procedure-related infections were reported between 2020 and 2024.
• Rates for ICU-CLABSIs, hip/knee SSIs, CSF shunt SSIs, and pediatric cardiac SSIs fluctuated without significant trends.
• Coagulase-negative staphylococci (37%) were the most common pathogen in ICU-CLABSIs, and Staphylococcus aureus (41%) in SSIs.

Conclusions:

• Epidemiological and microbiological trends of device- and surgical procedure-related HAIs are crucial for national and international benchmarking.
• Monitoring these trends helps identify changes in infection and antimicrobial resistance patterns.
• Findings inform hospital infection prevention and control and antimicrobial stewardship policies.