Laboratory Medicine and Nosocomial Infections: Treating and Reporting

Infectious disease specialists in hospitals are generally allied or belong to the clinical microbiology laboratory; whence they help diagnose the cause of infection, advise physicians, and monitor treatment.

Antibacterials, antifungals, and antivirals are administered to infected patients. Wounds are cleaned and debrided and animal/insect vectors removed. The patients might require expert care from an intensive care unit (ICU) team involving the infectious disease specialists, burn care specialists, and surgical staff. Patients may need to be treated for shock, hypoventilation, and other complications resulting from the infection.

Government-mandated reporting of health care-associated infections and new reimbursement regulations place a premium on accurate and reliable detection of these infections. This was stressed by Rocco J. Perla, Ed. D., from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, (Cambridge, MA, USA) and colleagues in an article that appeared on October 2009 in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC).

The authors of the article outlined the challenges and opportunities of having consistent, well defined, and continuous laboratory methods in place to ensure the reliability and validity of infection detection and reporting. These procedures could support the development and expertise of infection preventionists. The authors suggested a web-based clinical vignette model for improving healthcare associate infection reporting for hospitals participating in the CDC National Healthcare Safety Network.

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