Preventing the spread of hospital-acquired infections

Sometimes patients admitted to the hospital can get infections. At Erie Shores HealthCare, we take infectious disease prevention very seriously. We follow strict practices to help prevent infection in our hospitals. These include:

• patient precautions and treatment
• environmental cleaning
• monitoring and surveillance
• education and awareness for staff and patients

We also follow Provincial Infectious Disease Advisory Committee (PIDAC) guidelines and comply with the recommended standards and guidelines. Your safety is our top priority.

To promote accountability and transparency within the health system, all Ontario hospitals report publicly on their rates and number of new hospital-acquired infections.

How are rates calculated?

The infection rates are calculated as a rate per 1,000 patient days. Therefore, the “total patient days” represents the total number of days we provided services to all inpatients during a given time period.

The rate is calculated as the number of new hospital-acquired cases of C. difficile in a facility multiplied by 1,000 and divided by the total number of patient days for one month.