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The recently introduced concept of healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP) has created a lot of controversy. Research has shown that, among pneumonia patients, those who have had recent or repeated contact with healthcare institutions exhibit a different spectrum of pathogens and have worse outcomes than those with no such contact. Are the worse outcomes related more to patient characteristics or to the effects of different pathogens with higher resistance rates?
To find out, researchers in Spain conducted a prospective cohort study involving 228 adults with bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia between January 1999 and June 2007. Forty-four cases were classified as HCAP, and 184 as community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Among the patients with HCAP…