Healthcare-Associated Infections: Not Only a Clinical Burden, But a Forensic Point of View

Health care-acquired infections (HAIs) occur when patients receiving treatment in a health care setting develop an infection. They represent a major public health problem, requiring the integration of clinical medicine, pathology, epidemiology, laboratory sciences, and, finally, forensic medicine. Litigation and value of autopsy: The determination of cause of deaths is fundamental not only in the cases of presumed malpractice to ascertain the causal link with any negligent behavior both of health facilities and of individual professionals, but also for epidemiological purposes since it may help to know the global burden of HAIs, that remains undetermined because of the difficulty of gathering reliable diagnostic data. A complete methodological approach, integrating clinical data by means of autopsy and histological and laboratory findings aiming to identify and demonstrate the host response to infectious insult, is mandatory in HAIs related deaths.