Main Menu Browse by Day or Program Author Keywords

88 The ESAC-WebPPS application: Point Prevalence Surveys on Antimicrobial Prescribing Made Online

Friday, March 19, 2010
Grand Hall (Hyatt Regency Atlanta)
Arno Muller, Msc, PhD , University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Nico Drapier , University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Brice Amadeo, MSc , Inserm, Bordeaux, France
Peter Zarb, M.Phil , European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption, Msida, Malta
Béatrice Jans , Scientific Institute of Public Health, Brussels, Belgium
Vanessa Vankerckhoven, Msc, PhD , University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Peter Davey, Professor , Division of Community and Population Sciences and Education, Dundee, United Kingdom
Herman Goossens , University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Background:

The European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC) project, funded by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), is carrying out point prevalence surveys (PPS) on antimicrobial prescribing in hospitals and nursing homes, in Europe since 2006.

Objective:

In order to facilitate data collection of the different PPS, ESAC decided in 2007 to develop an in-house web-based application for data entry and reporting.

Methods:

ESAC-WebPPS has been developed to manage PPS with different protocols in different settings. The design was a three-tier application including a web-based client front-end, an application server in the middle and a back-end database server. The web-based client and application server have been developed in Java whereas the database server was a Postgresql database. Only open-source programs and libraries have been used. For the nursing homes surveys, the ESAC-WebPPS has been translated into 11 languages. In parallel, an optical reading system was used for the nursing homes PPS. For all surveys, automatic real-time individual feedback was provided using online reports.

Results:

ESAC has conducted four PPS using the ESAC-WebPPS tool: two surveys in hospitals in 2008 and 2009 and two surveys in nursing homes in 2009. In the hospital PPS 2008, 50 hospitals from 28 European countries participated using the ESAC-WebPPS tool whereas in 2009, 136 hospitals from 18 European countries participated in the survey. The nursing homes surveys were carried out during the Spring and Fall of 2009. Among 301 nursing homes participating in the spring survey, 42 (14%) used the web-based tool; this low percentage was due to the lower IT skills and resources of the nursing homes compared to the hospitals.

Conclusions:

ESAC successfully developed an in-house flexible web-based application: ESAC-WebPPS. The individual feedback to the institutions was a very important component of the success of these PPS. The ESAC-WebPPS tool will be integrated into the first health care associated infections and antimicrobial use PPS in acute care hospitals in Europe, piloted by ECDC in 2010 and 2011. Finally, the flexibility of our application will make it possible to adapt our tool for a hospital PPS in the European pediatric population in 2010.