title: [An information system for hospital hygiene. III. Exploratory data analysis of the dynamic aspects in the pathogen spectra of patient specimens from two intensive care units at a Berlin university hospital].
abstract: For the 18-months period ending June 1986 the computerised database of the institutes of medical microbiology and of hygiene at Berlin Free University showed about 12,200 specimens from 1,236 intensive care patients. In addition to a traditional tabulation of pathogens by site (urine, wound, bronchial secretion and blood) and service (multidisciplinary post-operative, 4,628 isolates and internal medicine, 1,813 isolates) resulting in a time aggregated assessment of the patients at both intensive care units (ICU) the same data were analysed to detect dynamic variations using 3 different approaches: (1) Medians of the sampling time span (STS) from first specimen of the same patient to follow-up specimens were analysed for 8 pathogens. In specimens from the bronchial tract S. aureus, Klebsiella spp., enterococci and P. aeruginosa showed the same sequence of STS-medians at both ICUs. (2) Dynamic modelling of sequential batches of 100 specimens from the bronchial tract using 3RSSH smoothing showed only poor variation in the proportion of E. coli and enterococci, but demonstrated substantial variation in S. aureus and P. aeruginosa. (3) The negative exponential model was used to fit frequency distributions of STS data. The model suggests a STS half life of 8 days before the first P. aeruginosa is reported from specimens of the bronchial tract of patients mostly with respirators. Periodical reporting of these indicators provides quantitative reference and enables the clinician to better relate individual information from his patients to the epidemiological outcome of his unit.
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001604:Berlin; D001980:Bronchi / Q000382:microbiology; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000254:growth & development; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008954:Models, Biological; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000254:growth & development; D013997:Time Factors
vernacular_title: Ein Informationssystem für die Krankenhaushygiene. III. Mitteilung: Explorative Datananalyse dynamischer Aspekte im Erregerspektrum der Patientenproben aus zwei Intensivpflegeeinheiten eines Berliner Universitätsklinikums.