Desinfection Policy and Infections Associated with Healthcare in Neurologic Patients

Abstract

Introduction: The problems surrounding healthcare associated infections is a necessity of governments and in particular for each health center, which better guides prevention actions, control and continuous adjustment of disinfection policy according to hospital infection rates. Objectives: To demonstrate the trend of HAIs and key factors that influence their control, emphasizing the continuous adjustment of disinfection policies over a period of five years, establishing a forecast for the 2020-2022 triennium. Methods: a descriptive, longitudinal and retrospective study of the HAIs was carried out at the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery of Cuba during the 2015-2019 five-year period, according to the disinfection policy and the actions carried out to raise the quality of the HAIs control program, calculating values forecasts through the least squares method. Results: during 2015-2019 rates of HAIs between 3.76 and 6.42 were maintained, with a prognostic estimate for the triennium 2020-2022 of a rate between 1.60 and 2.93, with a strong downward trend, maintaining the current mechanical and environmental disinfection policy established. Bacterium colonizations related to assisted mechanical ventilation prevailed in 34% of the patients and urinary tract infections in 25%, varying these data per year with a clear decrease of up to 18 percentage points according to the HAIs type. Conclusions: it is possible to implement a prospective in-hospital sepsis surveillance system in neurological patients, to increase the quality of the care process, establish prognoses and evaluate the impact of the disinfection policies used.