Analysing risk factors for urinary tract infection based on automated monitoring of hospital-acquired infection.

Urinary tract infections account for as much as one-third of all nosocomial infections. The aim of this study was to examine previously reported characteristics of patients with hospital-acquired urinary tract infections (HA-UTI) using an automated infection monitoring system (Hospital-Acquired Infection Registry: HAIR). A matched case-control study was conducted to investigate the association of risk factors with HA-UTI. Patients with HA-UTI more frequently had indwelling urinary catheters or a disease in the genitourinary or nervous system than the controls. Automated hospital-acquired infection monitoring enables documentation of key risk factors to better evaluate infection control interventions in general or for selected groups of patients.