Hospital- and System-Wide Interventions for Health Care-Associated Infections: A Systematic Review

Hospitals face increasing pressure to reduce health care-associated infections (HAI) due to their costs and evidence of preventability. However, there is limited synthesis of evidence regarding interventions that can be successfully implemented hospital- or system-wide. Using Donabedian’s structure-process-outcome model, we conducted a systematic literature review from 2008 to early 2019, identifying 96 studies with 214 outcomes examining the relationship between hospital- or system-wide interventions and HAIs. This literature’s methodologic and reporting quality was generally poor. The most common HAIs studied were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (22%) and Clostridium difficile (21%). 97 outcomes showed a desirable change, 72 showed no significant effect, 17 showed conflicting effects, and 3 found undesirable effects; 25 outcomes were from studies without a statistical analysis. Our findings highlight structural and process approaches meriting additional research and policy exploration, and identify recommendations for future investigation and reporting of hospital and system-wide HAI interventions to address gaps in existing literature.