What are hospital-acquired infections?
Sometimes when patients are admitted to the hospital, they can get infections. These are called hospital-acquired infections. For C. difficile, this may mean:
- symptoms began 72 hours after admission to the hospital; or
- the infection was present upon admission but related to a previous hospital admission within the last four weeks.
What are hospitals reporting?
On the last day of each month, all Ontario hospitals publicly report on their websites:
- the number of new hospital-acquired C. difficile cases associated with each of their hospital sites
- the rates of new hospital-acquired C. difficile cases associated with each of their hospital sites. The Ministry of Health also reports this information on its website.
How is the C. difficile rate calculated?
The C. difficile infection rate is calculated as a rate per 1,000 patient days. The “total patient days” represents the total number of days we provided services to all inpatients during a given time period.
The rate is calculated as:
- the number of new hospital-acquired cases of C. difficile in a facility multiplied by 1,000, and
- divided by the total number of patient days for one month.
How should these numbers be used?
This information is not intended for hospitals to compare themselves against other organizations, or for the public to use when deciding where to seek care.
Some hospitals may experience higher rates of infections due to their type (i.e. acute care) and patient population (i.e. elderly). A high number of cases in a one-month period does not necessarily mean that a hospital is “unsafe”; a lower number of cases in a one-month period does not necessarily mean that a hospital is “safe.” It is thus critical that infection rates be viewed in the context of other performance indicators. That said, tracking and analyzing our infection rates over time gives us helpful information we can use to improve the quality of care.
Who do I call about infection rates at Osler?
Please contact our Infection Prevention and Control Department at 905-494-2120 ext. 33312.
