A Prospective and Observational Study of Central Venous Catheter-Associated Infection for Three Consecutive Years in a 600-Bed Japanese Hospital

prosthesis type, spinal level, diabetes status, height, and weight were less frequently available. LESSON LEARNED: In our experience, facilities utilizing CSV/CDA electronic import for NHSN submission must still manually abstract data elements that are not available within the SDS. Several data elements not documented within the SDS are available within other hospital data systems or inherent to the ICD-9 procedure code(s) assigned to the surgical case. These data sources are sufficient for manual abstraction, but information/ codes from other systems are rarely accompanied by case-specific identifiers needed for electronic correlation with SDS intra-op details. Some facilities have incorporated custom fields into the SDS for completion by OR staff. Custom fields are still problematic as staff may not complete values as intended by the NHSN. Additional cost and competing priorities among OR staff cause many facilities to discount custom fields as a viable option. As procedure reporting is expanded at the state and federal level, the burden of data collection on clinicians may grow to unmanageable levels if steps are not taken by facilities and vendors to facilitate electronic data extracts/submissions. More needs to be done to standardize and support interoperability so that information can easily be extracted and linked across multiple source systems.