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AHRQ awards grant to reduce central line infections

Quality Improvement Monitor, October 10, 2008

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has awarded nearly $3 million for a contract to help reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections in hospital intensive care units (ICUs).

The Health Research & Educational Trust, an affiliate of the American Hospital Association, will coordinate the three-year initiative, which is part of an AHRQ strategy to reduce healthcare-associated infections.

The project will continue work started by the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association to implement a comprehensive unit-based patient safety program to help prevent infections related to the use of central line catheters. Each year, an estimated 250,000 cases of central line-associated bloodstream infections occur in hospitals in the United States, and an estimated 30,000 to 62,000 patients who get the infections die as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The comprehensive program, designed to survey and improve an intensive care unit's patient safety culture, was developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University and has been used in more than 100 ICUs in Michigan. The program includes tools to help healthcare professionals identify opportunities to reduce potential healthcare-associated infections and implement policies to make care safer. Within three months of implementation in Michigan, the program helped reduce infection rates to zero in more than 50 percent of participating hospitals.

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