Point prevalence survey for antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial use in rural and northern Canadian acute-care hospitals

Please Note: The Procurement Entity is “Health Canada” and the End user is “Public Health Agency Canada” . The purpose of this project is to assess the burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antimicrobial use (AMU) in a number of community, rural and Northern acute-care hospitals. This project will also help direct and implement policies and programs to alleviate the burden of AMR and inappropriate AMU in Canadian hospitals. In addition, results will support future AMR/AMU research by building knowledge to prevent and limit AMR spread and develop infection prevention control (IPC) guidelines. The Agency also intends to apply lessons learned from the AMU patterns to enhance education and awareness, which will eventually support antimicrobial stewardship programs in acute care hospitals in Canada. Scope: The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has identified gaps in surveillance information on AMR and AMU, specifically related to the lack of data on the extent of AMR and AMU in rural and northern hospitals. The Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (CARSS) will recruit 45 acute-care facilities that are non-academic and rural hospitals, or hospitals in the northern areas of the country. This project will assess the burden of AMR and AMU in a number of community, rural and Northern acute-care hospitals. The survey will be conducted in 2019, and again in 2020, and may continue for an additional three years (optional). PHAC will develop and implement the prevalence survey protocol, and will implement and monitor the survey at each participating acute-care hospital. At the end of the data collection period, each participating hospital will provide the completed patient forms to PHAC in an electronic format (.CSV) that is suitable for analysis by statistical software or by Excel, Access, or scanned copies delivered by courier. The data will consist of information on all hospitalized patients status of infection and antimicrobial use on the day of the point prevalence survey. A hospital information form will also be completed.