Healthcare related infection: methods and strategies implemented in Brazilian hospital surveillance from 2018 to 2023

Over the last century and a half, there has been a change in the epidemiological profile of causes of mortality in the world, particularly in developed countries. With a decline in infectious and parasitic diseases and an increase in chronic and degenerative diseases. This change in profile, however, has occurred unevenly in other developing countries, such as Brazil. These countries have shown only a slight change in their epidemiological profile. In addition to community-acquired communicable diseases, there is currently a major epidemiological impact of infectious diseases acquired in the hospital environment, known as healthcare associated infections (HAIs). In this scenario, this study seeks to identify epidemiological surveillance strategies for healthcare-related infections in the Brazilian healthcare system between 2018 and 2022. This is an integrative literature review, structured around the following stages: formulation of the research question; search and selection of primary studies; extraction of data from the selected studies; critical evaluation of the studies included in the integrative review; synthesis of the results and presentation of the review. In Brazil, all the studies show that there is a need to improve the operational guidelines and specific activities of the Hospital Infection Control Committees (HICC) in various services. The actions carried out by Hospital Infection Control Programs have varied in the literature, but these have offered suggestions for improvements for health managers in order to reduce the incidence of Healthcare-Related Infections.