KISS (Hospital Infection Surveillance System)

Project Description

For over 20 years, it has been known that continuous, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of relevant data on nosocomial infections, along with feedback to medical and nursing staff, can reduce the incidence of these infections. This form of internal quality assurance is known as surveillance. Its significance and effectiveness can be increased by comparing one’s own infection data with that of others. Only in the context of data from other departments or units can the level of one's own infection rates be accurately assessed. To avoid incorrect conclusions, such comparisons are only possible when identical methods are used for data collection, including fixed definitions for diagnosis. Since different units and departments use risk factors at varying frequencies and have differences in patient composition, these differences must be accounted for through standardization and stratification procedures in data calculation and analysis.

In 1996, the NRC developed a method to enable units and departments to conduct surveillance of nosocomial infections using a standardized approach that considers major influencing and risk factors, thereby allowing for comparative benchmarking. The data collected in participating units and departments are regularly submitted to the NRC for analysis. The aggregated and anonymized data are provided as reference data in a suitable format.