Welcome to Modern Healthcare's informational site on hospital-acquired infections and healthcare infection control efforts. The site will be updated regularly with news and feature stories on infections and infection control. Primary sources will be Modern Healthcare staff reporting as well as stories from other news organizations and reports from government sites and public health agencies.
December 24, 2008 The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality awarded $12.8 million in research grants to 19 quality, efficiency and safety projects. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian December 22, 2008 Despite published guidelines to help hospitals establish anti-microbial stewardship programs, some still have not created the formal programs that manage the use of antibiotics in admitted patients, according to a new survey. ... FULL STORY
Jessica Zigmond / HITS staff writer November 21, 2008 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should develop reliable cost and timeline estimates, as well as outcome-based performance measures, for implementing its BioSense program, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report. Created by the CDC in 2003, BioSense is an electronic-surveillance system that uses health-related data to identify patterns of disease symptoms prior to specific diagnoses. ... FULL STORY
November 11, 2008 Hospital patients either carry or are infected with Clostridium difficile at higher rates than previously thought, according to a new study by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. ... FULL STORY
November 10, 2008 Anti-bacterial drug use has appeared to increase between 2002 and 2006, and this leads to a subsequent increase in the risk that pathogens will become resistant to these drugs, according to a report in the Nov. 10 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. ... FULL STORY
October 29, 2008 The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology has launched a consulting subsidiary to help providers combat infections in their facilities. ... FULL STORY
October 22, 2008 Hospitals in several states say they’ve successfully reduced healthcare-associated infections through various initiatives, although concerns remain about available funds to keep these programs afloat. ... FULL STORY
October 20, 2008 The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology are asking providers across the globe to recognize this week as International Infection Prevention Week. ... FULL STORY
October 08, 2008 The Joint Commission is preparing to adopt methods from a new compendium of practical strategies for preventing the six most-important healthcare-associated infections in acute-care hospitals. ... FULL STORY
October 02, 2008 Hospitals may have an incentive to under-report their healthcare-associated infections and states lack the ability to find out if the number of infections hospitals report is accurate, according to a GAO study. ... FULL STORY
October 01, 2008 The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality awarded a $3 million contract to the Health Research & Educational Trust to implement a three-year program it hopes will reduce central-line-associated bloodstream infections in intensive-care units across the country. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian September 29, 2008 HHS’ announcement of a new infection-control action plan last week is a step in the right direction but by itself is not enough to motivate hospitals to reduce infection rates, industry executives said. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian September 29, 2008 More board leadership is required if hospitals are going to increase their level of performance on quality measures enough to qualify as a top facility as named by the Leapfrog Group, officials for the employer-backed quality group said. ... FULL STORY
September 23, 2008 HHS officially unveiled its infection reduction action plan, with an agency representative saying that it will be developed over the next few months. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian September 23, 2008 Infections play a big role in medical errors and in the perception that the healthcare industry is doing something—or doing little—to stop errors. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian September 22, 2008 Pieces of HHS’ new plan to tackle hospital-acquired infections were revealed by an HHS official during a presentation at the Joint Commission’s 2008 Annual Infection Prevention and Control Conference in Chicago. The plan, which identifies priorities and benchmarks for preventing and reducing hospital-acquired infections, was developed in response to a March Government Accountability Office report that criticized HHS for a lack of centralized infection-control efforts, said Don Wright, a physician who is the principal deputy assistant secretary for health. ... FULL STORY
Shawn Rhea June 30, 2008 Hospitals across the country are devising uncertain battle plans for a payer-mandated war on healthcare-associated infections and the efforts could prove a financial boon amounting to billions of dollars for some medical-products companies. But whether the horde of new and repackaged infection-prevention products on the market will save or cost hospitals money and be truly effective are still great unknowns, infection-prevention specialists say. ... FULL STORY
Shawn Rhea June 16, 2008 A new survey of infection-control professionals indicates that progress is being made in the fight against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, but also that hospitals could do more. ... FULL STORY
Kathy Warye June 16, 2008 Within the past decade, healthcare-associated infections have become a critical issue for American hospitals. Consumer groups and the media have elevated these infections to something of a cause celebre—a fact that has created state and federal legislative pressure. Currently, 27 states require some type of public reporting of these infections, and pending federal legislation would also require public disclosure of infection rates. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian March 10, 2008 Although roundly denounced by the American Hospital Association when it was announced by the CMS last August, a new Medicare reimbursement policy now seems to have drawn a practiced ambivalence among hospitals, which say that efforts to improve quality of care are the right course of action, but they need more guidance on just how the policy will be implemented. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian February 18, 2008 Technical limitations have created headaches for providers trying to comply with new state laws designed to reduce infections at hospitals. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian January 14, 2008 Two months after HHS’ Office for Human Research Protections told hospitals in Michigan to suspend quality activities it deemed were conducted illegally, quality proponents are worried the federal agency’s ruling will create an “unprecedented deterrent” to improvement efforts at healthcare facilities nationwide. ... FULL STORY
Cinda Becker December 17, 2007 Wiping out infections from hospitals may not be the financial slam-dunk it’s cracked up to be, which might explain a lot of the inertia surrounding infection control. ... FULL STORY
Andis Robeznieks October 22, 2007 With the public becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, healthcare regulators and hospital administrators are left scrambling to show that they’re doing something about the problem. ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian September 17, 2007 The healthcare industry’s continued failure to prevent hospital-acquired infections appears to have no end in sight, despite a steady stream of calls for improvement and the threat of regulation at the state level picking up steam. ... FULL STORY
Joseph Conn November 27, 2006 Patient safety at the nation’s hospitals took a hit again as three more studies connected poor practices at hospitals with costly and often lethal infections in hospitalized patients. ... FULL STORY
Cinda Becker October 11, 2004 Administrators don't like to talk about it, but hospitals are breeding grounds for infections and an adverse dividend of many a patient's stay.No hospital is immune, and infection control understandably is a key priority at every institution. Approximately one in 10 hospitalized patients will acquire an infection after admission, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That results in added treatment costs and extended hospital stays, and also could be life-threatening or, at the minimum, exacerbate a patient's hospital experience. ... FULL STORY
John Morrissey April 26, 2004 Infection fighters in hospitals start with one hand tied behind their back. They're always on the lookout for patterns of laboratory results and clusters of patients with the same microbial affliction, but the possibilities are so vast that they're reduced to targeting only certain areas of the hospital that are most likely to harbor and spread infections. ... FULL STORY
Associated Press October 28, 2008 Drug-resistant staph bacteria picked up in ordinary community settings are increasingly acquiring "superbug" powers and causing far more serious illnesses than they have in the past, doctors are saying. ... FULL STORY
New York Times October 16, 2008 Hoping to improve infection control in hospitals, the nation’s top epidemiological societies joined with the American Hospital Association and the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, to issue a compendium of guidelines for preventing six lethal conditions.... ... FULL STORY
Wall Street Journal October 16, 2008 In hospitals' war against drug-resistant superbugs, a class of bacteria once thought to be fairly benign is emerging as a deadly threat to the sickest and most vulnerable patients. The scourge -- known as gram-negative bacteria -- is throwing a new wrench into efforts to contain the spread of deadly infections.... ... FULL STORY
Associated Press September 08, 2008 Lots of youngsters on your street? Watch out: Flu may strike your community sooner and harder than it hits the hip singles neighborhood down the road. Flu-shot season begins this month, and for the first time vaccination is being pushed for virtually all children—not just those under 5. It's a huge change, and one bolstered by provocative new evidence that children are key flu spreaders. ... FULL STORY
