The annual upload of the national surveillance database to the TESSy system of

; ECDC allows comparison of results with other EU networks following the ECDC

; study protocol and case definitions. Based on the latest available report on incidence

; of ICU-acquired Infections, BE results for 2015 rank lower than the EU mean of 7.7

; ICU-acquired Pneumonia and 3.0 ICU-acquired Bloodstream infections per 1000

; patient days (Ref 5).

; The low participation to the NSIH-ICU surveillance in the last couple of years needs

; extra attention. The reasons for this are multiple. First, collecting data for this

; surveillance is only optional under current Federal law (Ref 6), and will normally

; come second with respect to the mandatory participation of national NSIH-AMR and -

; SEP surveillances under this law. Second, as far as collecting data on ICU-acquired

; Bloodstream infection is concerned, double reporting exists with the national SEP

; surveillance on Bloodstream infections hospital-wide. The participation to this

; surveillance will normally be prioritized given its mandatory status. Furthermore,

; single reporting of Pneumonia will ask for more efforts as compared to reporting

; Bloodstream infection, given the case definition of the former being based on both

; clinical and laboratory criteria.

; Because the low number of participating ICUs makes extrapolation of results to a

; national context problematic, the following simplifications were already implemented

; in the last years: possibility to collect data using the unit-based registration option;

; the possibility to choose one infection type and one ICU for registration; the

; possibility to avoid re-registration by creating surveillance data directly from existing

; electronic sources within the hospital. The following additions to enhance

; participation are currently planned: migration to the new healthdata.be platform which

; should allow improved electronic registration forms and integrated electronic data

; upload; addition of a module on structure and process parameters for the prevention

; of infection.