Introduction:

Health care-associated infections are those that appear during the patient's hospitalization and may be present or absent in the incubation period, at the time the patient is admitted to the hospital, regardless of whether or not it manifests itself during their stay at the hospital.

Objective:

To characterize the infections associated with health care in the province of Camagüey.

Methods:

A descriptive, cross-sectional and retrospective observational study was carried out on the behavior of infections associated with health care in the province of Camagüey, during the period from January 1st, 2016 to December 31st, 2020. The study universe comprised 500,949 patients admitted to hospitals with more than 100 beds. The discretionary sample was made up of 6,542 patients treated with a diagnosis of Health care-associated infections.

Results:

Decreasing trend at the provincial level of infections associated with health care within the national indicator that is up to 3%, the Manuel Ascunce Domenech University Hospital and the René Vallejo Psychiatric Hospital. Regarding lethality, the national indicator was not met in 2016, 2018 and 2019. The Hemodialysis Service showed the highest incidence rate and Escherichia coli was the most isolated microorganism.

Conclusions:

The fundamental aspects to reduce Health care-associated infections are prevention and surveillance measures, among which hand hygiene is considered the most effective measure.

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