Statistical Concepts: Report on Healthcare-Associated Infections

Report on Healthcare-Associated Infections
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Report on Healthcare-Associated Infections
Introduction
When patients come to a healthcare facility, they expect to receive treatment and get better. However, in the course of seeking medical care, patients can acquire other medical issues. One such issue is healthcare-associated infections (HIAs). According to Monegro et al. (2022), HAIs are infections that patients develop while receiving treatment at a healthcare facility. They are usually absent at the time of hospital admission but manifest 48 hours after hospital admission. Examples of HAIs include surgical site infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and Clostridium difficile infections, among others (Monegro et al., 2022).
HAIs are serious because they threaten patient safety and as Monegro et al. (2022) indicate, they increase healthcare costs and length of hospital stay and also contribute to multi-drug resistance infections at the community level. In addition, they increase mortality rates and they are the second major cause of death in the world (Haque, et al., 2020). As such, it is important to control HAIs to protect patients at individual and community levels. The data review in this report will reveal the prevalence of HAIs and point to the need for more effort toward preventing HAIs.
Report Overview
The goal of the report was to establish the prevalence rate of all HAIs and provide an approximation of the burden of HAIs at the national level. To achieve this goal, the report engaged in a survey and reviewed the documented medical records to identify the number of patients with an active HAI at the time of the survey. The report aimed at ensuring that all HAIs were being surveilled to establish not only the prevalence of specific HAIs but also the prevalence of all HAIs at the time of the survey. This would not only provide evidence of the progress in surveillance and prevention of HAIs so far but would also help in determining whether some HAIs were receiving more attention than others.
Data Gathering Methods and Statistical Methods
The report adopted a survey method to accomplish its goal. To collect data on HAIs, patient medical records from the participating healthcare organizations were used. The medical records provided data about patients who were receiving antimicrobial agents for HAIs treatment. Patients receiving this treatment were considered to have active HAIs. The report thus involved a documentation review of medical records to provide detailed information about HAIs before or on the date of the survey (Magill et al., 2014). In data analysis, chi-square tests and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests were used for comparison of patients with and without HAIs while the mid-P exact method ...