Aims
The overall aim of the HALT-2 project is to support the control of healthcare associated infections (HAI) and antimicrobial use by implementing a EU wide network of networks in long-term care facilities (LTCF)
The project therefore promotes a European protocol, based on a repeated point prevalence survey (PPS) design, to study the prevalence of HAI and antimicrobial use and related infection prevention and control (IC) process and structure indicators in European LTCF.
The obtained data will be useful to:
§ Quantify the prevalence of infections and antimicrobial use in LTCF, countries and European regions;
§ Follow trends;
§ Identify needs for intervention, training and/or additional IC resources;
§ Identify priorities for national and local intervention and raise awareness;
§ Foster the safety of health care for residents in LTCF and indeed the ageing population in general.
Methodology
In order to reach these objectives, HALT-2 will undertake following steps:
§ Revision of the European methodology for repeated PPS of HAI and antimicrobial use in LTCF (previous HALT project) and adaptation the software tool accordingly;
§ Proposal and validation of case definitions of HAI in LTCF and development of a European protocol for field validation of data collected during the PPS in LTCF;
§ Improvement of data quality by a) increasing the level of controlled data entry in the software tool and providing feedback on data quality to national and institutional representatives and b) by developing standardized training material and providing a train-the-trainers course;
§ Organization of one PPS of HAI and antimicrobial use in LTCFs in 2013. Each LTCF will have to complete an institutional questionnaire and a resident questionnaire for each resident receiving antimicrobials and/or presenting signs/symptoms of an infection on the day of the survey.