Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) are a main focus of infection prevention and control initiatives in neonatal care. Standardised surveillance of neonatal CLABSI enables intra- and interfacility comparisons which can contribute to quality improvement. To date, there is no national registration system for CLABSI in neonatal care in the Netherlands and several criteria are used for local monitoring of CLABSI incidence rates.
To achieve standardised CLABSI surveillance the authors conducted a consensus procedure with regard to nationwide neonatal CLABSI surveillance criteria (SC).
The consensus procedure consisted of three expert panel rounds.
The expert panel achieved consensus on Dutch neonatal CLABSI SC.
Neonatal CLABSI is defined as a bloodstream infection occurring more than 72 h after birth, associated with an indwelling central venous or arterial line and laboratory confirmed by one or more blood cultures.
In addition, the blood culture finding should not be related to an infection at another site and one of the following criteria can be applied: 1. a bacterial or fungal pathogen is identified from one or more blood cultures; 2. the patient has clinical symptoms of sepsis and 2A) a common commensal is identified in two separate blood cultures or 2B) a common commensal is identified by one blood culture and C-reactive protein level is above 10 mg/L in the first 36h following blood culture collection.
The conclusion is that the newly developed Dutch neonatal CLABSI SC are concise, specified to the neonatal population and comply with a single blood culture policy in actual neonatal clinical practice. International agreement upon neonatal CLABSI SC is needed to identify best practices for infection prevention and control.
Authors : I. E. Heijting* , T. A. J. Antonius , A. Tostmann , W. P. de Boode , M. Hogeveen and J. Hopman on behalf of the Working Group on Neonatal Infectious Diseases of the Section of Neonatology of the Dutch Paediatric Society
*Correspondence: ilja.heijting@radboudumc.nl 1 Department of Paediatrics, Division of Neonatology, Amalia Children’s Hospital, Radboud University Medical Center, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Internal Postal Code 804, Geert Grooteplein Zuid 10, 6525GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
