Hospital networks and the dispersal of hospital-acquired pathogens by patient transfer.

ABSTRACT: Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) are often seen as preventable incidents that result from unsafe practices or poor hospital hygiene. This however ignores the fact that transmissibility is not only a property of the causative organisms but also of the hosts who can translocate bacteria when moving between hospitals. In an epidemiological sense, hospitals become connected through the patients they share. We here postulate that the degree of hospital connectedness crucially influences the rates of infections caused by hospital-acquired bacteria. To test this hypothesis, we mapped the movement of patients based on the UK-NHS Hospital Episode Statistics and observed that the proportion of patients admitted to a hospital after a recent episode in another hospital correlates with the hospital-s

SUBMITTER: Donker T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3338821 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature