With one in four older medical patients affected, an updated national clinical care standard to improve care for people at risk of delirium – a serious and often preventable condition – has been applauded by healthcare professionals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened the focus on delirium for hospitalised patients, their families, carers and healthcare professionals.

The Fourth Australian report on antimicrobial use and resistance in human health (AURA 2021) highlights the ongoing public health and safety threat posed by antimicrobial resistance.

The most comprehensive report produced on Australian antimicrobial use and resistance trends to date has found that while antimicrobial use in the community is decreasing, overprescribing and inappropriate prescribing continues to be a problem. 

This report describes the national prevalence of CDI in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The report summarises the findings from the three Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) data snapshot reports from those years. The technical report also includes discussion on the validation of patient administrative data for the monitoring of CDI and the utility of combining other surveillance datasets with CDI surveillance data.