Vigilancia de procesos y resultados en la prevención de las infecciones nosocomiales

the nosocomial infections represent an important health problem in the healthcare activity because of their impact in terms of morbidity, mortality and work efficiency in this field. their prevention and control in the health institutions make it necessary to implement a preventive and control program having a sound surveillance system. furthermore, this program should have evaluating indicators for basic processes such as hand hygiene, intravascular devices, urinary catheters, assisted ventilation, surgery and use of antimicrobials; and outcome indicators to measure the incidence of infections according to their location and the intensity of exposure to risk factors. even though the cuban national program of prevention and control of nosocomial infections recommends the surveillance of processes associated to important risks, it does not include evaluating indicators; therefore, the introduction of such indicators was recommended as a way of strengthening the actions of the program in addition to increasing the quality of health care.