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Infection control and prevention in 2009 is front page news

Accreditation Connection, March 27, 2009

The past 12 months have been incredibly busy with regard to infection control issues. Take a look at some of the related topics we’ve seen covered in the mainstream media:

• Hand hygiene has made it to the front-page news this year.
• There is a focus on hospital attire, specifically scrubs and lab coats worn in public places.
• The public has been inundated with information and news stories about the prevalence of superbugs in our hospitals and communities. These include methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile, and other infections that threaten the health of patients and their families.
• The federal government, through CMS, is attempting to initiate improvement in this area by ceasing reimbursement for preventable healthcare-acquired infections. Given the current economic landscape, putting the focus on prevention can affect cost.

Interventions to prevent infections are definitely less expensive than the resources needed to control and manage infections. The question is whether hospitals have the resources and the stamina to put the plan in place.

The revised Infection Control and Prevention chapter in the Joint Commission’s 2009 Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals provides focused attention on continuous planning, implementation, evaluation, and improvement.

The standards, though reformatted and scored a bit differently, have not changed. The focus continues to be on the basics.

Access the full story in the March issue of Briefings on The Joint Commission. Access is free for BOJ subscribers; nonsubscribers can purchase a copy of the story for $10 by clicking here.

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