Environmental hygiene and healthcare-associated infection: a time-series study based on generalized additive model

TL;DR

This study shows that better environmental hygiene in hospitals is linked to fewer healthcare-associated infections.

Contribution

The study uses a time-series generalized additive model to quantify the relationship between environmental hygiene and healthcare-associated infections.

Findings

HAI occurrence is significantly positively correlated with total colony count.

High-touch surfaces and staff hand hygiene are strongly linked to HAI rates.

Multi-contamination models confirm the same positive correlation patterns.

Abstract

To quantitatively analyze the impact of environmental hygiene on the occurrence of healthcare-associated infection (HAI).

Monitoring data of HAI and environmental hygiene from a tertiary first-class hospital from July 1, 2022, to December 31, 2024, were collected, and the impact of environmental bacterial colony forming unit (CFU) on the occurrence of HAI was analyzed by a time-series generalized additive model (GAM).

The single-contamination model showed a significant positive correlation between HAI and total colony count, high-touch surface (HTS) colony count, and staff' hands colony count. The same pattern was observed in the multi-contamination model.

There is a significant correlation between environmental hygiene and the occurrence of HAI.

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