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.
By Jean DerGurahian October 30, 2009 Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise and without new antibiotics, infections will continue to be prevalent, according to researchers presenting at the Infectious Diseases Society of America annual meeting. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian / HITS staff writer August 24, 2009 The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality launched a new Web page on its site focused on healthcare-associated infections. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian August 12, 2009 Hospital admissions for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections are growing along with instances of community-associated MRSA, according to the results of a new study. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian July 20, 2009 The newly added readmission data to the CMS’ Hospital Compare Web site might help hospitals tracking that information, but the consumers targeted by the site still might not find much use for the data, some say. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian June 09, 2009 Education regarding hospital-acquired infections is one of the areas most reduced because of budget cutbacks in hospitals, according to a survey of infection-control specialists by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson May 11, 2009 Fresh from her Senate confirmation hearings, incoming HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius began her tenure in Washington with a rejoinder to community hospitals over their rising infection rates and a bit of funding to spur future improvements. ... FULL STORY
By Jennifer Lubell May 06, 2009 HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the availability of $50 million in stimulus resources to fight healthcare-associated infections and improve patient safety, issuing a specific challenge to hospitals to take action to reduce HAIs. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer May 01, 2009 Will health information technology tackle epidemics?IT vendors and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working on it. At the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society convention in Chicago, six health IT companies, working in collaboration with the CDC, demonstrated the potential for having public-health communications capabilities incorporated into their systems and into the proposed national health information network. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian April 29, 2009 Hospitals have made improvements in surgical infection-prevention measures but there still exists wide variation among facilities in providing the right care, according to a new Consumers Union report. ... FULL STORY
By Jennifer Lubell April 20, 2009 As the federal government seeks to make hospitals more accountable for high readmission rates, the industry has a clear message for policymakers: Don’t penalize hospitals for readmissions that are beyond their control. ... FULL STORY
By Shawn Rhea April 10, 2009 A cluster of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections has prompted Massachusetts Public Health Department officials to cite Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for serious deficiencies in infection-control practices, according to a news release. ... FULL STORY
By Andis Robeznieks March 28, 2009 A nationwide random data sample on anti-infection practices at ambulatory surgery centers and random on-site inspections of ASCs are needed to assess the magnitude of infection-control problems at such facilities, according to a Government Accountability office report. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian March 23, 2009 Results of a pilot program to reduce methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in hospitals indicate behavioral changes can help stop the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, researchers announced. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson March 19, 2009 Two patient-safety programs intended to encourage collaboration between hospitals in a noncompetitive environment with the goal of reducing the incidence of central-line infections are being launched nationally among 28 state hospital associations, foundations and patient-safety groups. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian March 19, 2009 Hospitals are sharing patients more frequently than they are aware of, which increases the chance of spreading infections, according to a report released at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America’s annual meeting. ... FULL STORY
February 23, 2009 The $150 billion in planned healthcare spending contained in the giant stimulus package signed last week by President Barack Obama can’t come soon enough for some healthcare providers. ... FULL STORY
By Jessica Zigmond February 23, 2009 First, the bad news: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospital-acquired infections cause about 1.7 million illnesses and 99,000 deaths each year, while 230,309 Americans have died from chronic disease so far in 2009, and it’s only February. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian February 21, 2009 The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality selected 10 state hospital associations and three patient-safety organizations to participate in a three-year initiative aimed at reducing central-line-associated bloodstream infections in intensive-care units. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian February 18, 2009 Overall rates of central-line bloodstream infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus have been decreasing in intensive-care units across the country, according to a new study. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian February 16, 2009 Industry leaders are calling for more definition and action in HHS’ national infection-control plan, with two influential groups in disagreement on how best to use the data that are collected through reduction efforts. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian January 12, 2009 Providers got a glimpse last week of the latest federal quality standards they will be expected to follow to reduce infections and also to comply with Joint Commission accrediting standards. ... FULL STORY
January 06, 2009 HHS has released targeted goals to reduce certain hospital-acquired infections in five years through its new infection-control action plan. ... FULL STORY
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
By 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
By 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
By 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
By 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
By 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
By 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
By 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
By Wall Street Journal January 08, 2009 You see them everywhere -- nurses, doctors and medical technicians in scrubs or lab coats. They shop in them, take buses and trains in them, go to restaurants in them, and wear them home. What you can't see on these garments are the bacteria that could kill you. Dirty scrubs spread bacteria to patients in the hospital and allow hospital superbugs to escape into public places such as restaurants. Some hospitals now prohibit wearing scrubs outside the building, partly in response to the rapid increase in an infection called "C. diff." ... FULL STORY
By 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
By 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
By 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
By 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
