Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has conducted public health surveillance on healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). This work is used to inform best-practices designed to minimize the risk of antimicrobial resistant organisms (AROs) to Canadians, specifically through the implementation of hospital-specific infection prevention and control (IPC) programs and antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP).
In addition to active surveillance, the Canadian Nonsociomial Infection Surveillance Program (CNISP) collects data on healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistant organisms and antimicrobial use via periodic point prevalence studies. To date, CNISP has conducted three point prevalence studies (2002, 2009 and 2017). The next point prevalence study is planned for 2024. In contrast to our partners in the Transatlantic Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance, CNISP has yet to validate its point prevalence data. Thus, CNISP proposes as part of the 2024 point prevalence study, a pilot project that will provide the opportunity for a subset of hospitals completing the primary point prevalence study to conduct a validation study in parallel.
The overall objective of this work is to improve PHAC’s access to HAI, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antimicrobial use (AMU) data through the implementation of the Canadian Acute-care hospital Point Prevalence Survey (CAPPS) from a nationally representative sample of acute-care hospitals across Canada. These data will assist PHAC in understanding the burden of of HAIs (including AROs) in order to inform IPC and ASP, help reduce the rates of HAIs (including AMR) in hospitals, reduce healthcare costs, and improve patient care.
As the delivery of healthcare is primarilly conducted by provincial and territorial governments (i.e. PHAC has no direct access to eligible hospitals), and as the definition for disease diagnoses are not harmonized between jurisdictions, PHAC requires the involvement of an intermediary. The contractor is required to be an established national organization or association with specialization in medical microbiology or infectious disease medicine to ensure national representation and data standardization.
