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Previous Volume 348:651-656 February 13, 2003 Number 7 Next

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Nosocomial, or hospital-acquired, infections (more appropriately called health care–associated infections) are today by far the most common complications affecting hospitalized patients. Indeed, the Harvard Medical Practice Study II found that a single type of nosocomial infection — surgical-wound infection — constituted the second-largest category of adverse events.¹ Long considered the greatest risk that the hospital environment poses to patients,² nosocomial infections abruptly became the province of public health officers at the time of a nationwide epidemic of hospital-based staphylococcal infections, in 1957 and 1958.³ Since then, the study and control of nosocomial infections have been profoundly shaped by the discipline . . . [Full Text of this Article]

The Nature of Nosocomial Infections

Prevention of Nosocomial Infections

Surgical-Site Infections

Outbreaks in Hospitals

The Patient-Safety Movement

Is the NNIS System a Model for Infection-Control Programs?

Source Information

From the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, LDS Hospital; and the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine — both in Salt Lake City.

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