A few months back in this space we reported an unusually frank assessment from a CDC epidemiologist, who warned that due to “perverse incentives” in the U.S. health care system hospitals do not always lose money on nosocomial infections. Forget breaking…
Hospitals in the U.S. continue to make progress in the fight against central line-associated bloodstream infections and some surgical site infections, but struggled to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) between 2010 and 2011, according to a new report issued by the…
Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) dropped by 52% when an alcohol-impregnated disinfection cap was used instead of standard scrubbing protocol, according to a new study published in the January issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication…
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has created a website with a wealth of tools to help hospitals set up the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP). Front-line users that have implemented CUSP say they not only reduced infections, but dramatically…
An intervention model called the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) is dramatically reducing central line infections and can be used to prevent other threats to patient safety, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) reports. In data released at…
Buried in a relatively mundane update of the nationwide success in preventing central line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), there is an implicit bombshell of a question for infection preventionists: Does the CUSP (Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program) strategy widely advocated by the Agency…
Infection preventionists, take a (brief) bow: Key HAIs falling, major challenges remain The needle is beginning to move. Four key healthcare associated infections (HAIs) are declining nationally as the result of unprecedented interest and action that includes everything from sweeping…
(Baltimore) There has been so much hoopla about driving central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) down to zero with checklists and bundles, that a unit that fails to achieve such success may take it somewhat personal. After a period of struggle,…
In 2003, when Pennsylvania was first in the vanguard of states enacting laws requiring public reporting of health care associated infections (HAIs), there was considerable concern and consternation within the infection control community. I was skeptical myself, questioning whether such…
The more some infection rates are driven down to absolute zero, the more disturbingly quaint appear all those old conversations about the inevitably of HAIs. The only thing inevitable about central line-associated bloodstream infections [CLABSIs] is that they are being…