Health care associated pneumonia: a new clinical entity.

Background: Traditionally, pneumonia has been classified as either community- or hospital-acquired. Although only limited data are available, health care–associated pneumonia has been recently proposed as a new category of respiratory infection. “Health care– associated pneumonia” refers to pneumonia in patients who have recently been hospitalized, had hemodialysis, or received intravenous chemotherapy or reside in a nursing home or long-term care facility. Objective: To ascertain the epidemiology and outcome of community-acquired, health care–associated, and hospital-acquired pneumonia in adults hospitalized in internal medicine wards. Design: Multicenter, prospective observational study. …