Hospital-acquired Pneumonia is a major issue for those weak and chronically institutionalized due to their healthcare needs. Pneumonia is an inflammation of the lungs, usually caused by an infection, which can be mild to life-threatening. Viruses, fungi, parasites and bacteria can cause pneumonia. If the bacteria are identified as MRSA, then you will have MRSA-pneumonia. MRSA-pneumonia is highly antibiotic resistant and most common in patients 65 years or older.
But let us start with a definition for the pneumonia discussed at this page: According to American Thoracic Society guidelines, nosocomial pneumonia is defined as pneumonia that occurs more than 48 hours after hospital admission but that was not incubating at the time of admission. However, the ventilator associated pneumonia is one defined as pneumonia occurring only after 48-72 hours of endotracheal intubation. We will not be discuss the latter and viral ones on these pages. The viral pneumonia is typically a community transferred decease thus not relevant to the Infection Prevention discussions of Curas aiming at facility care.
The nexus between hospital and nursing home (age care) acquired pneumonia is strong, and the Curas set of recommendations vis-à-vis the medical devices and supplies products apply universally across hospitals and nursing home facilities, irrespective if the pneumonia is caused by other infectious agents such as rickettsiae, fungi, and yeasts.
Bacterial pneumonia is caused by a pathogenic infection of the lungs and may present as a primary disease process or as the final coup de grace in the individual who is already debilitated, weak and exposed, and as presented on these Curas resource pages; a major part of what distinguishes these various categories of pneumonia and illnesses from each other is the varying risk of exposure to multidrug-resistant organisms, which have become so commonplace in modern medicine, and which Curas is fighting at every opportunity by means of modern, relevant, cost-effective and logical product solutions.
Looking at e.g. UK numbers it is clear that pneumonia is a problem that must be reckoned with: The age-standardized incidence of hospitalization with a primary diagnosis of pneumonia increased by 34% between 1997–98 and 2004–05 to over 101k cases, leading to over half a million hospital bed-days in all. These findings match data from both the USA and Denmark.
Source: http://www.mrsasurvivors.org/