This is the podcast, ICU rounds.

My name is Dr. Jeffrey Guy.

I'm an associate professor of surgery and director of the burn center at the Vanderbilt

University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.

Well, what is everybody talking about these days? They're talking about noocomial infections.

And noocomial infections have really been a problem in hospitals for about 700 years.

They're nothing new, but there's certainly something problematic.

And if there is an opportunity that we can prevent that a patient from getting an infection by being in a health care environment,

then we should certainly do everything we can to try to avoid it.

So comial infections have really been commonly described as what we call hospital-inquired infections,

but now with changes in our health care paradigm,

more patients getting at home health or more patients getting things like renal dialysis,

it's really more appropriately to call no socomial infections health care associated,

and it's probably the most inclusive and precise term that we currently have.

If you work in a hospital or have anything to do with an ICU, you're aware what's called the Nosecomial infection surveillance program or NNIS.

This was a program that the Center for Disease Control introduced in 1970s that really

to provide uniform definitions for these kind of infections.

And the NNIS was created to really assess the magnitude of patient safety issue and develop

strategies for noosocriminal infection control and prevention.

Current definitions of nosecriminal infections is a localized or stomach condition that results

from adverse reaction to the presence of an infectious agent or its toxins, and it was

not present or incubating at the time of admission to the hospital.

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