Healthcare-associated infections occur commonly in hospitals and have a major impact on patient well-being. The occurrence of the healthcare-associated infection, Clostridium difficile, has been occurring more frequently among hospitalized patients due to an epidemic strain, and is an important cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and colitis. This study examined the impact of several organizational factors on the occurrence of C. difficile infection (CDI) in hospitals using an institutional

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... theory perspective. Administrative claims were utilized from University HealthSystem Consortium hospitals to obtain hospital-level data for the calendar year 2011. Data were available for 89 hospitals. Hospital-level analyses, negative binomial regression models, were conducted to test eight developed hypotheses and the associations between organizational factors and the incidence of CDI in hospitals. Cases of CDI were riskadjusted for known factors associated with CDI.