Surveillance System of Hospital-Acquired Infection in the Philippines

Abstract

Nosocomial or hospital-acquired infections are defined as those that were neither present nor incubating at the time the patient came for care. Nosocomial infections are a significant problem throughout the world and they remain to be one of the major problems of Philippine hospitals. The Surveillance of Hospital-Acquired Infection in the Philippines (SHIP) was established in 1999 with an aim to create a national database of nosocomial infections and improve surveillance methods of hospitals in the Philippines. Registered hospitals were asked to perform prospective nosocomial infection surveillance on all patients within their own confines using uniform definitions and codes and report these data to scheduled SHIP meetings. For each nosocomial infection detected, a limited amount of information on the patient, the infection, the associated risk factors, and the outcomes of infection should be recorded on a data sheet form. Therefore, there is a need for an online surveillance system that will systematically collect, analyze and record patient infection data. The Surveillance System of Hospital-Acquired Infection in the Philippines (SSHIP) is a web-based computer program that will aid infection control doctors and nurses on the data collection and retrieval of important nosocomial infection information. SSHIP allows {I) infection control nurses to update the Infection Worksheet, Laboratory Data Form and the ICU Monthly Report Form, (2) infection control doctors and nurses to generate rates and graphs of the ICU Monthly Report Form, (3) online users to submit online SHIP Application Forms, and (4) sending via email of notification of application to Philippine hospitals who submitted their online SHIP Application Forms.