About the point prevalence survey of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial use in European long-term care facilities

The objectives of ECDC surveillance of HAIs and antimicrobial use in European LTCFs are:

To provide EU/EEA Member States and LTCFs with a standardized tool to follow trends in HAIs and antimicrobial use;
To identify priorities for national and local intervention measures and evaluate their implementation in EU/EEA Member States and LTCFs;
To estimate and monitor the burden of HAIs and antimicrobial use in LTCFs at national and European level.

In 2008, the coordination of surveillance of HAIs in Europe was transferred to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which created the Healthcare-Associated Infections Surveillance Network (HAI-Net).
A feasibility study of surveillance of HAIs in European nursing homes had already been performed under the Improving Patient Safety in Europe (IPSE) project financed by the European Commission.
In December 2008, ECDC initiated surveillance of HAIs and antimicrobial use in European LTCFs under the Healthcare-Associated Infections in Long-Term Care Facilities (HALT) project. The HALT project integrated variables from the European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption in Nursing Homes (ESAC-NH) subproject into a protocol for repeated PPS in LTCFs, thus providing an integrated methodology for continued assessment of the prevalence of HAIs and antimicrobial use in LTCFs. Data collection for the PPS as part of the HALT project took place in May-September 2010.
A second project (HALT-2) conducted a similar PPS in April-May 2013.
The next ECDC PPS of HAIs and antimicrobial use in European LTCFs under the HALT-3 project will take place in EU/EEA Member States and in EU enlargement countries in 2016 - 2017.