Surveillance for Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection (SABSI)
The rate of Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection (SABSI) in a hospital is considered to be an indication of the effectiveness of the hospital’s infection prevention and control program.
Implementation and validation guides
The rate of SABSI is a key performance indicator for acute care hospitals in Australia and is reported nationally. National data for healthcare-associated SABSI are published on the MyHospitals website.
The Commission has developed a surveillance implementation guide and surveillance validation guide, found below, to support Australian hospitals and organisations undertaking SABSI surveillance.
A data set specification for SABSI has been lodged in METeOR, the online repository of national data standards operated by the Metadata Unit of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This data set specification provides a detailed metadata standard to underpin national surveillance of SABSI. The intent of this data set specification is to support local development of forms and systems; it is not intended that all data items be collected at national level.
Analysing SABSI surveillance data
Understanding where and why SABSI occurs in a hospital should be an essential part of every hospital’s infection prevention and control strategy. SABSI surveillance should be complemented with robust data analysis that breaks down data in a meaningful way and allows for organisations to pinpoint where there have been wins and improvement in SABSI prevention as well as areas where additional resources, different strategies and further efforts are needed. The Commission has produced an information sheet to educate hospitals on how to better analyse and use their SABSI surveillance data as part of a quality improvement approach.
Visit the SABSI prevention page for more resources to support SABSI prevention.