Our survey demonstrates that the risk of nosocomial blood stream infections has nearly doubled for patients admitted to our hospital between 1986 and 1996, as a result of small but relentless increases from 1986 to 1995, followed by a large in­crease between 1995 and 1996. Because our surveillance tech­nique, definitions of infection and number of [...]

There were 2389 episodes of nosocomial blood stream in­fection between August 1, 1986 and December 31, 1996. The annual number of cases gradually rose from 184 in 1987, the first full year of the survey, to 267 in 1996. The case rate simi­larly rose from 6.0/10,000 admissions in 1986 to 8.7/10,000 admissions in 1995 (Figure [...]

The University of Alberta Hospital is a tertiary acute care facility and principal teaching hospital of the University of Al­berta Faculty of Medicine. All forms of acute medical care were provided during most of the survey period, including adult and paediatric medicine and surgery, obstetrics/gynecology, hematological oncology, and solid organ transplantation. The hospital has seven [...]

Long term trends in the occurrence of nosocomial blood stream infection Hospital care has long been associated with development of nosocomial infection. Recently, these infections have been identified as a significant public health problem. Changes in health care delivery over time, including the in­creased use of invasive procedures or immunosuppressive therapy in hospitalized patients and, [...]