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Hospitals need more funds to reduce healthcare-associated infections

Quality Improvement Monitor, October 24, 2008

Hospitals throughout the country have successfully reduced healthcare-associated infections, but they may not be able to afford to keep the programs running, according to ModernHealthcare.com.

Hospital representatives from New York and Tennessee discussed their initiatives to reduce various hospital-acquired infections, but they noted that they’ve had to cut costs in other areas to include these new efforts. In New York, an interdisciplinary teamwork model adopted by 46 hospitals reduced central line-associated infections by nearly 70% from 2005 to 2008, according to a speaker from the Greater New York Hospital Association.

Erlanger Health System in Chattanooga, TN, took a best-practices approach and reduced ventilator-associated pneumonia infections from 12 infections per 1,000 ventilators days in early 2007 to no cases in the summer of 2008, according to ModernHealthcare.com.

Sherry Hillis, infection prevention and control director at Blount Memorial Hospital in Maryville, TN, said her hospital needed additional funds and products to carry out its infection control strategies. As a result, the facility reduced its hospital-acquired infection rate by 50% over a five-year period.

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