Pilot testing standardized surveillance: Hospital Infection Standardised Surveillance (HISS)

In Australia the time-consuming nature of double handling of surveillance d ata has meant that surveillance methodology rarely included prospective mon itoring of patients at risk for the acquisition of a nosocomial infection. To streamline surveillance activities, infection control professionals favo red the collection of case data either from the ward or pathology laborator ies. By default, this method introduced a variety of definitions resulting in inconsistencies across health care facilities and artificial fluctuation s in the magnitude of infection. In June 1998, the New South Wales Health D epartment funded its first attempt to develop and implement a standardized approach to collection of nosocomial infection data-Hospital Infection Stan dardized Surveillance (HISS). Six months later, in December 1998, 10 public acute care hospitals pilot tested the content and methodology of HISS. HIS S members tested the application of the National Nosocomial Infection Surve illance system definitions for infection, active and passive surveillance m ethodology, the handheld computer for data collection, and the Electronic I nfection Control Automated Technology (eICAT) version for HISS software and analysis. HISS member hospitals selected from several sentinel monitoring programs such as intravascular device-related bacteremia and nonintravascul ar device-related bacteremia infections, surgical site infections, respirat ory syncytial virus infections, and rotavirus infections. Hospitals continu ed to perform active surveillance in the first 12 months, collecting demogr aphic variables, risk factors, and outcomes. The completeness of the data s ets for the two most frequently monitored programs, surgical site infection s and intravascular device-related bacteremia, was high, with 99.6% of the required 36,372 surgical site infection data fields and 99.4% of the 572,71 7 intravascular device-related bacteremia data fields completed.