Infection Control in Home Care

Emily Rhinehart

Author affiliation: AIG Consultants, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Table

Criteria for inclusion in definitions of home-care-acquired infection^a

Site of infection	Clinical data	Laboratory data
Catheter-related UTI^b	Change in characteristics of urine	Elevated serum leukocytes
	Fever	Evidence of UTI in urinalysis
	Pain	Evidence of leukocytes in urine dipstick test
		Positive urine culture (>10⁵ CFU of a single organism per mL urine)
Postoperative pneumonia	Change in character of sputum	Elevated serum leukocytes
	Decreased breath sounds	Sputum Gram-stained smear with
	Increase in rales and rhonchi	evidence of respiratory infection
	Fever	Positive sputum culture
	Shortness of breath	Positive chest X ray
	Pain

Catheter-related bloodstream infection	Fever with chills and rigors	Elevated serum leukocytes
	Redness, tenderness, or pain at insertion site	Positive blood culture
	Purulent drainage at site	Positive catheter culture (after catheter removal)

Skin and soft tissue infection	Pain, swelling, tenderness at site	Gram-stain smear with leukocytes and organisms
	Inflammation and warmth	Positive culture
	Purulent drainage	Elevated serum leukocytes
	Fever
Endometritis in postpartum patients	Uterine tenderness and abdominal pain	Positive Gram-stain smear of lochia
	Purulent vaginal drainage (lochia)	Positive culture of lochia
	Foul-smelling lochia	Remarkably elevated serum leukocytes
	Fever

^aSource: Rhinehart E, Friedman M. Infection control in home care. Gaithersburg (MD): Aspen Publishing, Inc.;1999 (22). ^bUTI = urinary tract infection.

Main Article

The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions. Use of trade names is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by any of the groups named above.

File Formats Help:

How do I view different file formats (PDF, DOC, PPT, MPEG) on this site?

Page created: May 10, 2011
Page last updated: May 10, 2011
Page last reviewed: May 10, 2011
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID)
Office of the Director (OD)

Ahead Of Print

Past Issues

Related Information

Additional Resources

Volume 7, Number 2—April 2001 THEME ISSUE 4th Decennial International Conference on Nosocomial and Healthcare-Associated Infections

Prevention is Primary