CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY ON HEALTHCARE ASSOCIATED INFECTIONS IN A REGIONAL EMERGENCY HOSPITAL FROM NORTHEASTERN ROMANIA

Background: Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) represent one of the major issues of population health as it affects sick people, medical staff involved in providing medical care and non-medical supportive staff. Methods: A longitudinal descriptive study on a total of 982 patients suffering from hospital-acquired infections was carried out between 2012-2017 at the “St. Mary” Emergency Children Clinical Hospital in Iasi, Romania. Results: The extremely large range of clinical epidemiological results and analyzed statistics indicated a global incidence of HAIs of 0.57% (for an annual average flow of 28,685 discharged patients), with over unity variations in the risk departments. Most of these were mechanical ventilation related-infections, surgical plague related-infections and central venous catheter-related infections. Conclusion: The results of our study are comparable to the data registered at the national level. Unlike developed countries, which are equipped with a much better monitoring system, in Romania, the incidence and prevalence data are undervalued, due to some dysfunctions in managing these infections with regards to terms of screening and reporting them. Therefore, it is imperative for HAIs to represent a constant professional priority among the duties of the entire medical staff in order to provide safety to the medical-surgical act and pediatric patient.