Hospital initiatives to slash the number of infections patients pick up while under their care are working, a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found, though results vary by state.
Hospitals nationwide have seen a 46 percent drop in central-line associated bloodstream infections in the last five years, according to the CDC’s National and State Healthcare-associated Infection Progress Report. These infections are caused when a tube is placed in a large vein and either not put in correctly or not kept clean, becoming a highway for germs to enter the body and cause deadly infections in the blood.
The annual report shows how each state and the country are doing in eliminating six infection types that hospitals are required to report to the CDC.
Hospital-acquired blood infections, MRSA and surgical site infections dropped in the past 5 years. - Tweet this
Among 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, 26 states performed better than the nation on at least two of the six infection types tracked, according to the CDC. Sixteen states performed better than the nation on three or more infections, including six states performing better on four infections, it said.
In addition, 19 states performed worse than the nation on two infections, with eight states performing worse on at least three infections, according to the CDC.
But the news was largely good. The report, which analysed data from 2008 to 2013, found a 19 percent decrease in surgical site infections related to the 10 procedures tracked in the report.
The CDC also found an 8 percent drop in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infections between 2011 and 2013.
While the report focuses on infections occurring within acute care hospitals, the majority of Clostridium difficile deadly diarrhea infections and MRSA infections develop in the community or are diagnosed in healthcare settings other than hospitals, according to the CDC.
However, hospitals did show a 6 percent increase in catheter-associated urinary tract infections since 2009, though initial data from 2014 suggests that these infections have started to decline. When a urinary catheter is either not put in correctly, not kept clean, or left in a patient for too long, germs can travel through the catheter and infect the bladder and kidneys.
Healthcare-associated infections are a major, yet often preventable, threat to patient safety, according to the CDC. Nearly one in 25 U.S. patients has at least one infection contracted during the course of his or her hospital care.
“Hospitals have made real progress to reduce some types of healthcare-associated infections -- it can be done,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement.
Research shows that when healthcare facilities, care teams and individual doctors and nurses are aware of infection control problems and take specific steps to prevent them, rates of targeted HAIs can decrease dramatically, according to the CDC.
Preventing infections in the first place means patients will not need antibiotics to treat those infections, slowing the rise of antibiotic resistance.
The report provides data that can be used by hospitals to target improvements. For example, increased attention to the prevention of catheter-associated urinary tract infections resulted in a reversal of the recent increase seen in those infections, according to the CDC.
The CDC is also working to use HAI data to help identify specific hospitals and wards that can benefit from additional infection control training.
The report summarizes data submitted to CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network by more than 14,500 hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Not all states reported or had enough data to calculate valid infection information on every infection in this report.
Twitter: @SusamMorseHFN