Trends of device utilization ratios in intensive care units over 10-year period in South Korea: Device utilization ratio as a new aspect of surveillance.

Device-associated healthcare-associated infection is an important issue related to safety of patients. It is important to reduce unnecessary device utilization in order to decrease device associated infection (DAI) rates.To investigate the time trend of device utilization ratios (DURs) of voluntarily participating hospitals, collected over a 10-year period through the Korean National Healthcare-associated Infections Surveillance System (KONIS).We studied DURs from 2006 through 2015 in 190 KONIS participating intensive care units (ICUs). DURs were calculated as the ratio of device-days to patient-days. The pooled incidences of DAIs and DURs were calculated for each year of participation and analyzed year-wise trend.Year-wise ventilator utilization ratio (V-DUR) increased significantly from 0.40 to 0.41 (F = 6.27, P < 0.01) and urinary catheter utilization ratio (U-DUR) from 0.83 to 0.84, although non-significantly (F = 1.66, P = 0.10), and C-line utilization ratio (CL-DUR) decreased from 0.55 to 0.51, although non-significantly (F = 1.62, P = 0.11). In the subgroup analysis, 'medical ICU' (F = 2.79, P < 0.01) or 'hospital with more than 900 beds' (F = 3.07, P < 0.01) was related to significant increase in V-DURs.In Korea, V-DURs showed a significant, year-wise increasing trend. Additionally, the trend for U-DURs and CL-DURs showed no significant decrease. Efforts are required to ensure the reduction of device utilization ratios.