Method for measuring the incidence of hospital acquired infections by determining a Nosocomial Infection Marker

A method and a system for analyzing patient hospitalization data to determine a Nosocomial Infection Marker (NIM) are disclosed. The system comprises a database for storing patient hospitalization data; and a processor for performing the steps of receiving from a database hospitalization data associated with at least one patient; calculating from the hospitalization data the number of Specimens with Non-duplicate Hospital Isolates (SNDHI) markers; calculating from the hospitalization data Antibiotic Utilization Criteria (AUC) markers; determining the nosocomial infection marker (NIM) for each patient, based upon the calculated SNDHI and AUC markers. Calculating the number of specimens with non-duplicate hospital isolates comprises eliminating duplicate isolates; eliminating isolates associated with specimen contamination; eliminating isolates associated with surveillance; eliminating isolates associated with non-infected clinical states; identifying hospital isolates; calculating the number of specimens with non-duplicate hospital isolates for each hospitalization; and assigning one SNDHI marker to each SNDHI determined. Calculating for each patient hospitalization antibiotic utilization criteria comprises identifying patient admits where antimicrobials were dispensed during the course of hospitalization; and assigning one AUC to each hospitalization identified in the previous step when antimicrobials were started on or after hospital day N, and were given for at least X consecutive days or until discharge or death wherein N is a number of days greater than 0 and wherein X is a number of days greater than 0.