HHS Awards $17 Million in a New National Initiative to Fight Health Care-Associated Infections

/PRNewswire/ -- HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the award of $17 million to fund projects to fight costly and dangerous health care-associated infections, or HAIs.

"When patients go to the hospital, they expect to get better, not worse," Secretary Sebelius said. "Eliminating infections is critical to making care safer for patients and to improving the overall quality and safety of the health care system. We know that it can be done, and this new initiative will help us reach our goal."

HAIs are one of the most common complications of hospital care. Nearly 2 million patients develop HAIs, which contribute to 99,000 deaths each year and $28 billion to $33 billion in health care costs. HAIs are caused by different types of bacteria that infect patients being treated in a hospital or health care setting for other conditions. The most common HAI-causing bacteria is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The number of MRSA-associated hospital stays has more than tripled since 2000, reaching 368,600 in 2005, according to HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.

Of the $17 million, $8 million will fund a national expansion of the Keystone Project, which within 18 months successfully reduced the rate of central-line blood stream infections in more than 100 Michigan intensive care units and saved 1,500 lives and $200 million. The project was originally started by the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association to implement a comprehensive unit-based safety program. The program involves using a checklist of evidence-based safety practices; staff training and other tools for preventing infections that can be implemented in hospital units; standard and consistent measurement of infection rates; and tools to improve teamwork among doctors, nurses and hospital leaders.

Last year, AHRQ funded an expansion of this project to 10 states. With additional funding from AHRQ and a private foundation, the Keystone Project is now operating in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. The new funding announced today will expand the effort to more hospitals, extend it to other settings in addition to ICUs, and broaden the focus to address other types of infections. Specifically, the new $8 million in funding will provide:

-- $6 million to the Health Research & Educational Trust for national
efforts to expand the Comprehensive Unit-Based Patient Safety Program
to Reduce Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infections. The funding
will allow more hospitals in all 50 states to participate in the
program and expand the program's reach into hospital settings outside
of the ICU. The Health Research & Educational Trust will also use $1
million to support a demonstration project that will help fight
catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

-- $1 million to Yale University to support a comprehensive plan to
prevent bloodstream infections in hemodialysis patients.


AHRQ, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also identified several high-priority areas to apply the remaining $9 million toward reducing MRSA and other types of HAIs. These projects will focus on:

-- Reducing Clostridium difficile infections through a regional hospital
collaborative.
-- Reducing the overuse of antibiotics by primary care clinicians
treating patients in ambulatory and long-term care settings.
-- Evaluating two ways to eliminate MRSA in ICUs.
-- Improving the measurement of the risk of infections after surgery.
-- Identifying national-, regional- and state-level rates of HAIs that
are acquired in the acute care setting.
-- Reducing infections caused by Klebsiella pneumoniae
Carbapenemase-producing organisms by applying recently developed
recommendations from CDC's Healthcare Infection Control Practices
Advisory Committee.
-- Standardizing antibiotic use in long-term care settings (two
projects).
-- Implementing teamwork principles for frontline health care providers.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page

CDC to Distribute $40 Million in Recovery Act Funding to Help States Fight Healthcare-Associated Infections

Money marks first time Congress appropriates HAI prevention funds specifically to states

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today announced plans to distribute $40 million to state health departments to help prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the money will be distributed through cooperative agreements to 49 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico to maximize prevention efforts such as:

* Creating or expanding state and local efforts to implement recommendations in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HAI Action Plan

* Increasing health care facilities' and health departments' use of CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network, a surveillance system that allows HAI data to be tracked, analyzed and compared for prevention efforts

* Hiring and training public health staff to promote and lead HAI prevention initiatives

* Complementing HAI investments from other HHS agencies

"Americans expect to get better when they go to the hospital, not worse" said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "Unfortunately, every year, thousands of Americans die from illness they contract after they enter the hospital. Thanks to Chairman David Obey's leadership, the Recovery Act includes critical resources that will help fight these infections and keep patients safe."

Efforts will focus on HHS priority targets such as bloodstream infections, surgical site infections and catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and will address pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile (C. diff). The investment represents the first time Congress has appropriated HAI prevention funds specifically to states.

"We expect these programs to strengthen tracking and prevention of healthcare-associated infections, enhance facility accountability, provide data for informed policy, and ultimately save lives," said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. "Funding critical prevention efforts at state and local levels represents a significant investment toward elimination of HAIs and improved patient safety."

CDC estimates that every year, Americans contract 1.7 million infections while being treated in hospitals. These infections are associated with approximately 99,000 deaths annually. In addition to the significant toll on patients' lives, HAIs represent an estimated $30 billion in added healthcare costs.

HHS has addressed HAIs by coordinating efforts across the Department and creating the HHS action plan which includes five-year national prevention targets to reduce and prevent much of the significant burden to our nation. One of the goals of the HHS Action Plan is to collaborate effectively with public and private sector partners to accomplish the large-scale prevention of HAIs.

For instance, CDC is collaborating with several states that have demonstrated that implementing CDC's HAI prevention guidelines and using NHSN to monitor progress can achieve major decreases in HAIs.

Prevention success can be characterized in a number of ways. Some states have shown quick reductions after implementing prevention efforts, and others have sustained low infection rates over an extended period of time. For example, in the first six months of 2009, compared to 2008, hospitals in Tennessee achieved a 30 percent reduction of bloodstream infections associated with central lines (a catheter, or tube, that is inserted into a major vein or artery, and that ends up close to or in the heart). In another instance, intensive care units in a New York state hospital group achieved a 70 percent reduction of central line-associated bloodstream infections and sustained these rates for a three-year period.

"Many states and localities have lacked the resources and personnel needed to appropriately address the HAI burden," said Marion Kainer, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Tennessee Department of Health Hospital Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance Program, and HAI prevention lead for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. "This investment will provide a unique opportunity to make prevention of HAIs a national accomplishment."

Background on HAI Investments in the Recovery Act

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Public Law 111-5 (ARRA) was signed into law on February 17, 2009. Within the Recovery Act, $50 million was appropriated to support states in the prevention and reduction of healthcare associated infections (HAI). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will use $10 million to improvethe process and frequency of inspections for ambulatory surgical centers, while CDC will allocate $40 million to states to create or expand state-based HAI prevention collaboration efforts, enhance state abilities to monitor and track HAIs, and build within health departments a workforce trained in HAI prevention. For more information on the Recovery Act: www.recovery.gov. For more information about CDC's HAI Recovery Act funding: www.cdc.gov/hai/recoveryact.
---
Community News You Can Use
Follow us on Twitter: @gafrontpage
www.FayetteFrontPage.com
www.GeorgiaFrontPage.com
www.PoliticalPotluck.com
www.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com
---