Major ArticlesEffect of a comprehensive infection control program on the incidence of infections in long-term care facilities*,**,*
Section snippets
Study design and population
Eight private, freestanding LTCFs were selected for the study. The facilities were located in New Jersey and Delaware. All were enrolled in the Medisys, Inc (an infection control consulting firm) infection control surveillance program. The 8 facilities were selected on the basis of similarity with respect to admission rate, size, acuity levels (intermediate and skilled), availability of services (the same off-site laboratory and radiology service), overall infection rates, and in-house
Results
Data were compared from all LTCFs during the preintervention and intervention years. Pathogenic organisms were identified but have not been noted in the results of this study. As shown in Table 1, during the preintervention period the test sites experienced a total of 743 infections and had an IDR of 6.33 infections per 1000 patient days; the most commonly seen infections were upper respiratory tract infection (n = 228) and genitourinary tract infection (n = 215).
Discussion
Because infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the long-term care setting, attempts to control infections have demanded increasing attention.2, 10 Pneumonia is the most frequent cause of death in the institutionalized elderly.10, 11 Muder et al10 estimated that the cost of admission of a patient with pneumonia to an acute care facility in 1992 was $14,600. Mor12 calculated that treating moderate to severe infections with a third-generation cephalosporin exclusively in the
Acknowledgements
We thank Theresa Ritchie for her technical and administrative assistance on this project.
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