Over view of healthcare associated infections in Indian and global scenario: A literature review

• Main Authors: K.S. Sarala, B.S. Nanda Kumar, V. Narendranath
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Al Ameen Medical College 2018-01-01
• Series: Al Ameen Journal of Medical Sciences
• Subjects: Hospital acquired infections; Cost control; Length of stay; Epidemiology
• Online Access: http://ajms.alameenmedical.org/ArticlePDFs/4%20AJMS%20V11.N1.2018%20p%2012-17.pdf

Hospital Acquired Infectionsare known as Health care associated infections / Nosocomial infections. These are the type infections that patient develops during their course of receiving Healthcare treatment for other conditions, which are not present during the time of admission. Hospital acquired infections occurs usually after 48hrs of admission or within 30days of discharge/surgery done or within 2 years of implants placed. Common hospital acquired infections include Surgical site infections, Blood stream infections, Ventilator-associated pneumonia, Urinary tract infections. It is indeed a great challenge for clinicians to deal with Health-care-associated infections as these infections many times causes life threating to patients, causes morbidity , mortality and long term disability. Hence the burden of Health care expenditure and control on cost is the main area to be focused. Developed countries have less rate of HAI when compared to developing countries due to the variation of money spent in each country as health budget in their GDP. According to world health statistics the total GDP on health spent in India is only 1.62% of total health budget. Money spent on health care is more in United States which accounts from 8.8 to 15.2% of GDP. According to the national health policy draft 2015 the public expenditure on health is rising from one percent of GDP to 2.5 %. In the light of this fact, still the healthcare outcomes are not improved. In the socio-economic and epidemiological point of view, the study of HAI (Hospital acquired infections) is important as they increase the economic burden to the patient due to increase in hospital stay to care givers , burden to the Hospital administrators, patients and clinicians. Proper Protective measures like Personnel Protective Equipment, Hand hygiene, proper sterilization of equipment’s and instruments helps to reduce the number of HAI.