Passive surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in Queensland public hospitals: the basis for a national system?
Australia currently has no system of passive surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in spite of the importance of surveillance in identifying and defining emergent resistance being generally accepted. Queensland Health Pathology and Scientific Services have developed flexible software for passive surveillance with the capacity to handle national data. The system imports raw data strings in delimited ASCII text format into a relational database and screens to exclude duplicates before the processing of the cumulative susceptibility data. It allows considerable flexibility in inquiry parameters and has the ability to 'drill down' to individual laboratory results. Examples of analytical output are given for 49,169 unique isolate results obtained in all Queensland Health Pathology Service laboratories from 1 January to 30 June 2003. The system could form the basis of a national system for passive antimicrobial resistance surveillance.
Queensland Health Pathology Service, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland. Graeme_Nimmo@health.qld.gov.au
Graeme R
GR
Nimmo
Jonathan
J
Fong
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D001330:Electronic Data Processing; D005260:Female; D006090:Gram-Negative Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006094:Gram-Positive Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006779:Hospitals, Public; D006801:Humans; D007753:Laboratories; D008297:Male; D016106:Methicillin Resistance; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D009313:National Health Programs; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D011793:Queensland; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012984:Software
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents