ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BODY SUBSTANCE PRECAUTIONS AS THE INFECTION-CONTROL SYSTEM OF A LARGE TEACHING HOSPITAL

Background: Body substance precautions was the name given to the body substance isolation-based infection control system that was introduced in January 1990 at a Canadian university hospital with 650 acute care beds and 570 long-term care beds. When the body substance precautions system was begun, traditional category-specific isolation was discont inued. Methods: After 2 years, we reviewed the incidence of several ty pes of nosocomial infections and the frequency of isolation of hospita l strains of bacteria before and after the introduction of body substa nce precautions to find out whether this system was as effective as th e previous system of infection control.Results: Most nosocomial infect ions did not increase. There was another likely cause for the only one that did. For many years, we had isolated patients infected or coloni zed by hospital bacteria, limiting their spread throughout the institu tion. Body substance precautions proved equally effective in doing thi s. Conclusion: Our results to date therefore indicate that the body su bstance precautions system was as successful as category-specific isol ation used with other standard infection control techniques in maintai ning low rates of nosocomial infections and in controlling the dissemi nation of hospital strains of bacteria in our institution. Body substa nce precautions provided a satisfactory alternative to universal preca utions and traditional isolation categories for the protection of heal th care workers against the risk of infection by blood-borne viruses.