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In findings that dramatically undercut the growing perception that infection prevention has become a top priority for the health care system, many IPs are having budgets slashed and critical functions such as surveillance compromised, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) reported recently in Fort Lauderdale, FL, at the group's annual conference.
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IPs today must be willing to learn, willing to change, become tech-savvy, and demonstrate their programs save lives and dollars.
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Multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) such as those common in staph and enterococci strains are increasingly the cause of infection, prolonged illness and death among a large patient population, The Joint Commission emphasizes in a new report aimed at health care senior leaders.
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Though many infection preventionists are inundated with data reporting requirements and are having difficulty maintaining routine surveillance activities, health care administrators are reluctant to provide them with "data mining" software, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) reports.
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Quality care doesn't end when a patient leaves the hospital. And with rehospitalization rates on the top of the list of concerns for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, managing the care of the patient after he or she is discharged from your facility is not a nicety, it's a necessity.
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Effective July 1, accredited hospitals will be scored on both the 2009 accreditation standards and the additional requirements released by The Joint Commission in March to bring the accrediting body more in line with CMS Conditions of Participation (CoPs). But that's not the only thing that will be different in the scoring and surveying process.
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Venous thromboembolism (VTE) has hit center stage as a major and preventable cause of death in hospitals and now a core measure for The Joint Commission.
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It's when they looked back at what they had accomplished that they realized they really had been organized.
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Perhaps no American in medicine is more synonymous with hand hygiene than Elaine Larson, RN, PhD, FAAN, CIC, associate dean for research at the Columbia School of Nursing in New York City. Larson has authored scores of papers on the cardinal principle of infection prevention.
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Recent outbreaks of hepatitis C are a wake-up call to boost infection control practices, particularly in outpatient settings. But they also underscore the prevalence of HCV and the continued occupational risk to health care workers.