ABSTRACT
In general, evaluation and management of acute care infections remains one of the greatest challenges to staff and healthcare practitioners in institutional long-term care facilities (LTCFs). The general goals and objectives, staffing patterns, available resources for diagnostic testing, and primary role of physicians and nursing staff are different between an acute care hospital and an LTCF, as indicated in Table 1. Thus, the approach to evaluating infections in LTCFs will also be different between an acute care hospital and an LTCF. The differences in the evaluation of infections in the hospital setting include the infrequent presence of physicians in the LTCFs, the inability to obtain timely and accurate laboratory and radiological data, and the limited nursing assessment that occurs at the LTCF, which is subsequently transmitted to the healthcare practitioner via telephone.
