CDC focusing on infection prevention in long term care

January 12th, 2015

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has created an infection prevention website specifically focused on long term care, where 1 to 3 million serious infections occur every year.

As a result, some 380,000 nursing home residents die of infections annually.

This CDC site organizes existing infection prevention guidance and resources into sections for clinical staff, infection prevention coordinators, and residents. Facilities can also directly access the new infection tracking system for long-term care facilities in CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network, and the infection prevention tools and resources developed as part of the partnership between CDC and the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes Campaign (AE). The partnership between CDC and AE grew through a joint effort to prevent Clostridium difficile infections in nursing home residents.

According to the AE, residents are at increased risk of infections for many reasons. As more people enter nursing homes following hospital stays, nursing homes are providing more hands-on, complex medical care to residents, such as wound care and maintenance, which can lead to increased exposure to bacteria and infections The shared living environment of a nursing home can allow the spread of easily transmissible infections among both staff and residents.