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At Bluewater Health, patient safety and quality of care are the highest priority.
Bluewater Health regularly publishes performance information using indicators to measure and report on how well we’re doing.
One way that we do this is by keeping track of infection rates.
Hospital-acquired infections are infections that patients can get when they stay in a hospital, but did not come into the hospital with them. These hospital-acquired infections are called nosocomial infections. It is important to monitor for these types of infections because we do not want them to spread between patients or from patient to visitor. Older patients, those with weak immune systems and patients who have been in hospital for a long time are vulnerable to these infections.
One of the most common hospital-acquired infections is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). Click here to learn more.
Bluewater Health supports the public reporting of MRSA. The data provides a snapshot of infection rates in hospital over a certain period of time and is a helpful measure that allows us to evaluate our hospital’s processes, identify areas for improvement and implement strategies to reduce the incidence of infection in our hospital.
For more information on this reporting requirement, visit the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s website at www.ontario.ca/patientsafety.
Chart Interpretation
The rates are based on bacteremia infections per 1,000 patient days. Therefore, the data represents the total number of patients with hospital-acquired MRSA bacteremia infections per 1,000 patient days in the reporting period. Bacteremia occurs when an infection is in the blood stream.
Rates may vary from quarter to quarter: the smaller the facility, the greater the rates will vary. This is because a change in even one case in a small facility will cause the rate to go up or down considerably.
If the number of cases in the quarterly period is 0, the number will be identified as 0. If the number of cases in the quarterly period is between 1 and 4, the number will be identified as "less than 5" to protect the privacy of patients who have the potential to be identified in a small facility.
The identification of Bluewater Health’s three locations as Mitton Site (Site A), CEEH (Site B), and Norman Site (Site C), is in line with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care reporting. *please note this is not how we currently identify our hospital locations
This information is updated quarterly based on Bluewater Health’s Infection Control Department surveillance data. |
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