Hospitals putting up a fight against healthcare associated infections, or HAIs, are expected to save money and improve patient care, and a nationwide redesign to implement infection prevention procedures is just the ticket to do so.
"The effect of HAIs annually on U.S. hospitals is staggering," said Kathy Warye, chief executive officer for the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. "Two million patients infected; 90,000 deaths, more than one death every six minutes; excess costs of nearly $6 billion."
According to a survey of over 930 infection preventionists nationwide, an increase in executive and physician leadership and improvements in general infection prevention practices are needed to help prevent HAIs.
Only 15 percent of survey respondents indicated that executive and physician leadership are actively engaged and leading the charge against infections in their facilities, though 30.3 percent suggested executives and physicians are the most important resource to meet HAI challenges.
"We can't point a finger at one person to control infection prevention," sad Daniel Varga, MD, chief medical officer at SSM Health Care. "We need the personnel, it requires a new set technologies, and investment and processes; we are, fundamentally as a system, poor at understanding our work."
Survey respondents, which included quality, safety, risk management and infection preventionists representing all types and sizes of hospitals, cited removing unnecessary indwelling urinary catheters (55.5 percent), as the most challenging HAI prevention intervention to implement.
"Healthcare leaders must make infection prevention a priority and allocate resources to efforts that target institution-wide prevention, education, measurement and process improvements," said Warye.
Measuring compliance with hand hygiene practices recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was also identified by 35.5 percent of the respondents as a significant challenge.
"Improving compliance with infection prevention practices requires integration of these practices into the daily tasks of all clinicians," said Premier Safety Institute vice president Gina Pugliese. "This necessitates a redesign of our systems and processes, such as the use of checklists for critical tasks or strategically placed alcohol-based hand rub dispensers."
In October 2008, changes to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Inpatient Prospective Payment System will take effect, potentially reducing reimbursement for certain hospital-acquired conditions, including HAIs. Therefore, preventing HAIs will be imperative for health systems.
In order to optimize organizational readiness for this change, respondents cited accurate and/or appropriate physician documentation of patient records (51.6 percent) and accurate coding, including accurate use of new present on admission codes (20.2 percent), as the activities needing the most attention.
The task force will identify short and long-term goals for the redesign later this week. Executives would like to release an initial draft of a completed action plan by the end of the current administration, and are looking for as much public comment as possible.
What do you think of the redesign? What will it take to get total compliance for HAI prevention? Send your thoughts to Associate Editor Chelsey Ledue at chelsey.ledue@medtechpublishing.com.