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Introduction: All Danish hospitals are obliged to start a process of accreditation during 2009. On this background and in order to create a baseline for hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) as well as focus on infection control, we have initiated semi-annually prevalence surveys on HAIs in the North Denmark Region (RN). Materials and methods: Prevalence surveys were carried out in all somatic hospital wards in RN, twice in 2006 and once in 2007. The four most important HAIs were registered: urinary tract infection (UTI), pneumonia, deep surgical site infection and septicaemia. Moreover, the use of permanent and intermittent urinary tract catheters was registered. Results: The overall prevalence rate in the three surveys varied between 5.2 and 7.1%. The number of patients included varied from 93.7%-98.9% of available beds. The prevalence rate for deep surgical site infections increased from the 1st to the 2nd survey, although not significantly. In the 1st survey a significantly greater number of patients with urinary tract catheters had UTIs, compared to patients without. The two later surveys only showed a trend towards increasing UTIs among patients with urinary tract catheters compared to those without. Conclusions: Repeated prevalence surveys proved to be a quick and resource-economic way of monitoring HAIs. The registration indicated a high degree of compliance among personnel. The increase in the prevalence rate of deep surgical site infections may help us find indications for further investigation by means of a time-limited incidence survey. The possible increase in UTIs among patients with urinary tract catheters may stimulate us to evaluate the indications for catheter use.

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