PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Hugo Sax

Publications and source records attributed to Hugo Sax.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Reduction of urinary tract infection and antibiotic use after surgery: a controlled, prospective, before-after intervention study.

BACKGROUND: Urinary tract infection is the most frequent health care-associated complication. We hypothesized that the implementation of a multifaceted prevention strategy could decrease its incidence after surgery. METHODS: In a controlled, prospective, before-after intervention trial with 1328 adult patients scheduled for orthopedic or abdominal surgery, nosocomial infection surveillance was conducted until hospital discharge. A multifaceted intervention including specifically tailored, locally developed guidelines for the prevention of urinary tract infection was implemented for orthopedic surgery patients, and abdominal surgery patients served as control subjects. Infectious and noninfectious complications, adherence to guidelines, and antibiotic use were monitored before and after the intervention and again 2 years later. RESULTS: The incidence of urinary tract infection decreased from 10.4 to 3.9 episodes per 100 patients in the intervention group (incidence-density ratio, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.20-0.79; P=.004). Adherence to guidelines was 82.2%. Both the frequency and the duration of urinary catheterization decreased following the intervention. Recourse to antibiotic therapy after surgery dropped in the intervention group from 17.9 to 15.6 defined daily doses per 100 patient-days (P<.005) because of a reduced need for the treatment of urinary tract infection (P<.001). Follow-up after 2 years revealed a sustained impact of the strategy and a subsequent low use of antibiotics, consistent with stable adherence to guidelines (80.8%). CONCLUSIONS: A multifaceted prevention strategy can dramatically decrease postoperative urinary tract infection and contribute to the reduction of the overall use of antibiotics after surgery.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Evaluating the probability of previously unknown carriage of MRSA at hospital admission.

PURPOSE: We determined the prevalence and risk profile of patients with previously unknown carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) at hospital admission. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We conducted a 7-month, prospective case-controlled study in adult inpatients admitted to a university hospital with endemic MRSA. Multivariate conditional logistic regression for data sets matched 1:4 was performed to identify the risk profile of newly identified MRSA carriers. RESULTS: Overall, 399 of 12072 screened admissions (prevalence, 3.3%) were found colonized (n = 368, 92%) or infected (n = 31, 8%) with MRSA. In 204 cases (prevalence, 1.7%), MRSA carriage was newly identified. Without screening on admission, 49% (196/399) of MRSA carriers would have been missed. We identified nine independent risk factors for newly identified MRSA carriage at admission (adjusted odds ratio): male sex (1.9); age greater than 75 years (2.0); receipt of fluoroquinolones (2.7), cephalosporins (2.1), and carbapenems (3.2) in the last 6 months; previous hospitalization (1.9) or intravenous therapy (1.7) during the last 12 months; urinary catheter at admission (2.0); and intrahospital transfer (2.4). A risk score (range, 0-13) was calculated by adding points assigned to these variables. On the basis of analysis of 1006 patients included in the case-controlled study, the probability of MRSA carriage was 8% (28/342) in patients with a low score (< or =1), 19% (92/482) in patients with an intermediate score (2-4), and 46% (84/182) in patients with a high score (> or =5). The risk score had good discrimination (c-statistic, 0.73) and showed excellent calibration (P = .88). CONCLUSIONS: On-admission prevalence of previously unknown MRSA carriers was high. Applying the risk score to newly admitted patients with an intermediate or high probability of MRSA carriage could allow a more effective MRSA control strategy.

Aged↗
PubMed2006

Evidence-based model for hand transmission during patient care and the role of improved practices.

Hand cleansing is the primary action to reduce health-care-associated infection and cross-transmission of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens. Patient-to-patient transmission of pathogens via health-care workers' hands requires five sequential steps: (1) organisms are present on the patient's skin or have been shed onto fomites in the patient's immediate environment; (2) organisms must be transferred to health-care workers' hands; (3) organisms must be capable of surviving on health-care workers' hands for at least several minutes; (4) handwashing or hand antisepsis by the health-care worker must be inadequate or omitted entirely, or the agent used for hand hygiene inappropriate; and (5) the caregiver's contaminated hand(s) must come into direct contact with another patient or with a fomite in direct contact with the patient. We review the evidence supporting each of these steps and propose a dynamic model for hand hygiene research and education strategies, together with corresponding indications for hand hygiene during patient care.

Education↗
PubMed2005

Learning from imbalanced data in surveillance of nosocomial infection.

OBJECTIVE: An important problem that arises in hospitals is the monitoring and detection of nosocomial or hospital acquired infections (NIs). This paper describes a retrospective analysis of a prevalence survey of NIs done in the Geneva University Hospital. Our goal is to identify patients with one or more NIs on the basis of clinical and other data collected during the survey. METHODS AND MATERIAL: Standard surveillance strategies are time-consuming and cannot be applied hospital-wide; alternative methods are required. In NI detection viewed as a classification task, the main difficulty resides in the significant imbalance between positive or infected (11%) and negative (89%) cases. To remedy class imbalance, we explore two distinct avenues: (1) a new re-sampling approach in which both over-sampling of rare positives and under-sampling of the noninfected majority rely on synthetic cases (prototypes) generated via class-specific sub-clustering, and (2) a support vector algorithm in which asymmetrical margins are tuned to improve recognition of rare positive cases. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Experiments have shown both approaches to be effective for the NI detection problem. Our novel re-sampling strategies perform remarkably better than classical random re-sampling. However, they are outperformed by asymmetrical soft margin support vector machines which attained a sensitivity rate of 92%, significantly better than the highest sensitivity (87%) obtained via prototype-based re-sampling.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2005

Prevalence and prediction of previously unknown MRSA carriage on admission to a geriatric hospital.

OBJECTIVES: to determine the prevalence and characteristics of previously unknown methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) carriers at admission. DESIGN: two prospective case-control studies. SUBJECTS: 1,621 elderly patients were screened for MRSA carriage within 24 hours after admission to a geriatric hospital in Geneva, Switzerland. METHODS: risk factors associated with previously unknown MRSA carriage were determined in the derivation group, and the resulting risk score was evaluated in the validation cohort using logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: prevalence of MRSA carriage at admission increased from 7.3% (53/724 patients) in 2001 to 8.7% (78/897 patients) in 2003, with a corresponding prevalence of unknown MRSA carriers of 4.6 and 5.8%, respectively. Three variables were independently associated with previously unknown MRSA carriage: recent antibiotic treatment (adjusted OR (aOR) 2.3; 95% CI 1.0-5.1), intra-hospital transfer (aOR 2.5; 95% CI 1.2-5.3), and hospitalization in the past 2 years (aOR 2.7; 95% CI 1.1-6.7). In the validation cohort, the probability of MRSA carriage increased across risk scores: 0 point, 4% prevalence (6/146); 1 point, 15% (21/136); and $2 points, 31% (21/68; P<0.001). The risk score showed good discrimination and calibration in both groups. CONCLUSIONS: our risk score, which used a simple additive point system to estimate the likelihood of unknown MRSA carriage, had good accuracy and generalised well in an independent sample of patients. Once validated in a clinical trial, our risk score may be used as a tool to optimise MRSA control.

Aged, 80 and over↗
PubMed2005

Considerations for a WHO European strategy on health-care-associated infection, surveillance, and control.

Health-care-associated infection (HAI) is a major issue of patient safety with a substantial impact on morbidity, mortality, and use of additional resources worldwide. In April 2004, the WHO Regional Office for Europe organised the first international consultation to address the issue of HAI in eastern and central Europe. The main objectives of the consultation were to identify the primary needs and obstacles for the prevention and control of HAI at country level, to design the essential components of an international strategy to effectively address the issue of HAI, and to identify specific priorities and recommendations for interventions by the WHO and other international institutions. An update on HAI activities and related networks throughout Europe, together with the outcome of the meeting, are presented, with special emphasis on future considerations for a European WHO strategy on HAI prevention.

Cross Infection↗
PubMed2005

Knowledge of standard and isolation precautions in a large teaching hospital.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the level of knowledge regarding and attitudes toward standard and isolation precautions among healthcare workers in a hospital. METHOD: A confidential, self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted in a random sample of 1500 nurses and 500 physicians in a large teaching hospital. RESULTS: A total of 1,241 questionnaires were returned (response rate, 62%). The median age of respondents was 39 years; 71.9% were women and 21.2% had senior staff status. One-fourth had previously participated in specific training regarding transmission precautions for pathogens conducted by the infection control team. More than half (55.9%) gave correct answers to 10 or more of the 13 knowledge-type questions. The following reasons for noncompliance with guidelines were judged as "very important": lack of knowledge (47%); lack of time (42%); forgetfulness (39%); and lack of means (28%). For physicians and healthcare workers in a senior position, lack of time and lack of means were significantly less important (P < .0005). On multivariate linear regression, knowledge was independently associated with exposure to training sessions (coefficient, 0.33; 95% confidence interval, 0.08 to 0.57; P = .009) and less professional experience (coefficient per increasing professional experience, -0.024; 95% confidence interval, -0.035 to -0.012; P < .0005). CONCLUSIONS: Despite a training effort targeting opinion leaders, knowledge of transmission precautions for pathogens remained insufficient. Nevertheless, specific training proved to be the major determinant of "good knowledge".

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Nosocomial bacteremia: clinical significance of a single blood culture positive for coagulase-negative staphylococci.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the epidemiology of nosocomial coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) bacteremia and to evaluate the clinical significance of a single blood culture positive for CoNS. DESIGN: A 3-year retrospective cohort study based on data prospectively collected through hospital-wide surveillance. Bacteremia was defined according to CDC criteria, except that a single blood culture growing CoNS was not systematically considered as a contaminant. All clinically significant blood cultures positive for CoNS nosocomial bacteremia were considered for analysis. SETTING: A large university teaching hospital in Geneva, Switzerland. RESULTS: A total of 2,660 positive blood cultures were identified. Of these, 1,108 (41.7%) were nosocomial; CoNS were recovered from 411 nosocomial episodes (37.1%). Two hundred thirty-four episodes of CoNS bacteremia in the presence of signs of sepsis were considered clinically relevant and analyzed. Crude mortality and associated mortality were 24.4% and 12.8%, respectively. Associated mortality was similar among patients with one positive blood culture and those with two or more (16.2% vs 10.8%, respectively; P = .3). Mortality rates after bacteremia for patients with a single positive blood culture and for those with two or more were 15.3% and 7.0%, respectively, at day 14 (RR, 2.2; CI95, 0.87-5.46) and 20.8% and 11.3%, respectively, at day 28 (RR, 1.9; CI95, 0.9-3.8). On multivariate analysis, only age and a rapidly fatal disease were independently associated with death. CONCLUSION: CoNS bacteremia harbor a significant mortality and a single positive blood culture in the presence of signs of sepsis should be considered as clinically relevant.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Catheter-related infections.

Nosocomial infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among hospitalized patients. These infections have made newspaper headlines recently in many countries, and both patients and their relatives are now perfectly aware of their existence and of the risks which are inherent to any medical activity. However, significant improvements in the knowledge of the pathophysiology and epidemiology of nosocomial infections allow us to prevent them efficiently. Accordingly, they should no longer be considered as an inevitable tribute to pay to the continuous progress of medicine, but as a real challenge in the process of improving the quality of patient care. This is particularly the case for bloodstream infections, of which at least 80% are considered to be catheter associated. This paper reviews the epidemiology and impact of infections associated with the use of intravenous catheters. Principles of therapy are reviewed, as well as major aspects of prevention.

Catheterization, Central Venous↗
PubMed2004

Cost implications of successful hand hygiene promotion.

We evaluated the costs associated with a sustained and successful campaign for hand hygiene promotion that emphasized alcohol-based handrubs. The total cost of the hand hygiene promotion corresponded to less than 1% of the costs associated with nosocomial infections. Successful hand hygiene promotion is probably cost-saving.

Alcohols↗
PubMed2004

Prevalence of nosocomial infections in Swiss children's hospitals.

OBJECTIVE: To acquire data on pediatric nosocomial infections (NIs), which are associated with substantial morbidity and mortality and for which data are scarce. DESIGN: Prevalence survey and evaluation of a new comorbidity index. SETTING: Seven Swiss pediatric hospitals. PATIENTS: Those hospitalized for at least 24 hours in a medical, surgical, intensive care, or intermediate care ward. RESULTS: Thirty-five NIs were observed among 520 patients (6.7%; range per hospital, 1.4% to 11.8%). Bacteremia was most frequent (2.5 per 100 patients), followed by urinary tract infection (1.3 per 100 patients) and surgical-site infection (1.1 per 100 patients; 3.2 per 100 patients undergoing surgery). The median duration until the onset of infection was 19 days. Independent risk factors for NI were age between 1 and 12 months, a comorbidity score of 2 or greater, and a urinary catheter. Among surgical patients, an American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score of 2 or greater was associated with any type of NI (P = .03). Enterobacteriaceae were the most frequent cause of NI, followed by coagulase-negative staphylococci; viruses were rarely the cause. CONCLUSIONS: This national prevalence survey yielded valuable information about the rate and risk factors of pediatric NI. A new comorbidity score showed promising performance. ASA score may be a predictor of NI. The season in which a prevalence survey is conducted must be considered, as this determines whether seasonal viral infections are observed. Periodic prevalence surveys are a simple and cost-effective method for assessing NI and comparing rates among pediatric hospitals.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Nursing resources: a major determinant of nosocomial infection?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: There is growing concern that changes in nurse workforce and hospital-restructuring interventions negatively impact on patient outcomes. This review focuses on the association between understaffing and health-care-associated infections. RECENT FINDINGS: There is a large number of studies showing that overcrowding, understaffing or a misbalance between workload and resources are important determinants of nosocomial infections and cross-transmission of microorganisms. Importantly, not only the number of staff but also the level of their training affects outcomes. The nurse workforce is ageing, mainly due to fewer individuals' engaging in a nursing career. This phenomenon, combined with cost-driven downsizing, contributes to a nursing shortage, and this tendency is not expected to revert unless important system changes are implemented. The causal pathway between understaffing and infection is complex, and factors might include lack of time to comply with infection control recommendations, job dissatisfaction, job-related burnout, absenteeism and a high staff turnover. SUMMARY: The evidence that cost-driven downsizing and changes in staffing patterns causes harm to patients cannot be ignored, and should not be considered as an inevitable outcome. More research is needed to better define the optimal patient-to-nurse ratio in various hospital settings and to estimate the economical impact of the nursing shortage. All quality-improvement interventions should carefully take into account systems and processes to be successful, as the issue of staffing is essentially a structural problem.

Cross Infection↗
PubMed2004

Nosocomial bloodstream infection and clinical sepsis.

Primary bloodstream infection (BSI) is a leading, preventable infectious complication in critically ill patients and has a negative impact on patients' outcome. Surveillance definitions for primary BSI distinguish those that are microbiologically documented from those that are not. The latter is known as clinical sepsis, but information on its epidemiologic importance is limited. We analyzed prospective on-site surveillance data of nosocomial infections in a medical intensive care unit. Of the 113 episodes of primary BSI, 33 (29%) were microbiologically documented. The overall BSI infection rate was 19.8 episodes per 1,000 central-line days (confidence interval [CI] 95%, 16.1 to 23.6); the rate fell to 5.8 (CI 3.8 to 7.8) when only microbiologically documented episodes were considered. Exposure to vascular devices was similar in patients with clinical sepsis and patients with microbiologically documented BSI. We conclude that laboratory-based surveillance alone will underestimate the incidence of primary BSI and thus jeopardize benchmarking.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

An application of one-class support vector machine to nosocomial infection detection.

Nosocomial infections (NIs)---those acquired in health care settings---are among the major causes of increased mortality among hospitalized patients. They are a significant burden for patients and health authorities alike; it is thus important to monitor and detect them through an effective surveillance system. This paper describes a retrospective analysis of a prevalence survey of NIs done in the Geneva University Hospital. Our goal is to identify patients with one or more NIs on the basis of clinical and other data collected during the survey. In this two-class classification task, the main difficulty lies in the significant imbalance between positive or infected (11%) and negative (89%) cases. To cope with class imbalance, we investigate one-class SVMs which can be trained to distinguish two classes on the basis of examples from a single class (in this case, only "normal" or non infected patients). The infected ones are then identified as "abnormal" cases or outliers that deviate significantly from the normal profile. Experimental results are encouraging: whereas standard 2-class SVMs scored a baseline sensitivity of 50.6% on this problem, the one-class approach increased sensitivity to as much as 92.6%. These results are comparable to those obtained by the authors in a previous study on asymmetrical soft margin SVMs; they suggest that one-class SVMs can provide an effective and efficient way of overcoming data imbalance in classification problems.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2003

Ventilator-associated pneumonia: caveats for benchmarking.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the influence of using different denominators on risk estimates of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). DESIGN AND SETTING: Prospective cohort study in the medical ICU of a large teaching hospital. PATIENTS: All consecutive patients admitted for more than 48 h between October 1995 and November 1997. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: We recorded all ICU-acquired infections using modified CDC criteria. VAP rates were reported per 1,000 patient-days, patient-days at risk, ventilator-days, and ventilator-days at risk. Of the 1,068 patients admitted, VAP developed in 106 (23.5%) of those mechanically ventilated. The incidence of the first episode of VAP was 22.8 per 1,000 patient-days (95% CI 18.7-27.6), 29.6 per 1,000 patient-days at risk (24.2-35.8), 35.7 per 1,000 ventilator-days (29.2-43.2), and 44.0 per 1,000 ventilator-days at risk (36.0-53.2). When considering all episodes of VAP (n=127), infection rates were 27.3 episodes per 1,000 ICU patient-days (95% CI 22.6-32.1) and 42.8 episodes per 1,000 ventilator-days (35.3-50.2). CONCLUSIONS: The method of reporting VAP rates has a significant impact on risk estimates. Accordingly, clinicians and hospital management in charge of patient-care policies should be aware of how to read and compare nosocomial infection rates.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Comparison of waterless hand antisepsis agents at short application times: raising the flag of concern.

OBJECTIVE: Although alcohol-based hand rinses and gels have recommended application times of 30 to 60 seconds, healthcare workers usually take much less time for hand hygiene. We compared the efficacies of four alcohol-based hand rubs produced in Europe (hand rinses A, B, and C and one gel formulation) with the efficacy of the European Norm 1500 (EN 1500) reference waterless hand antisepsis agent (60% 2-propanol) at short application times. DESIGN: Comparative crossover study. SETTING: Infection Control Program laboratory of a large tertiary-care teaching hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Twelve healthy volunteers. INTERVENTION: Measurement of residual bacterial counts and log reduction factors following inoculation of fingertips with Staphylococcus aurens American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) 6538, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 15442, and a clinical isolate of Enterococcus faecalis. RESULTS: All hand rinses satisfied EN 1500 standards following a single application for 15 and 30 seconds, but reduction factors for the gel formulation were significantly lower for all tested organisms (all P < .025). CONCLUSIONS: Under stringent conditions similar to clinical practice, all three hand rinses proved to be more efficacious than the marketed alcohol-based gel in reducing bacterial counts on hands. Further studies are necessary to determine the in vivo efficacy of alcohol-based gels and whether they are as efficacious as alcohol-based rinses in reducing the transmission of nosocomial infections.

Anti-Infective Agents, Local↗