Surveillance information is information for action. Therefore, surveillance has to be investigated in the context of infection control activities in order to specify these activities and also to identify risk factors and significant infection control measures to improve quality of care. However, within a given country the variability of infection rates as well as parameters of patient care quality is limited. But the variability concerning both points is much broader on a European level. Therefore a European project in this field allows the description of infection control activities and identification of further risk factors to prove the value of existing recommendations and guidelines.

This is particularly interesting for those recommendations on an evidence level IB (recommended but not based on good epidemiological investigations, e.g. due to ethical reasons or the problems of organising such a study with a randomised controlled design) or on the level unresolved issue.

Even if hospitals do not perform surveillance, their data of patient care quality parameters are very helpful to characterise infection control activities.