A skeleton key to the HHS plan
HAIs among 'most preventable'deaths
Emphasizing that 'health care-associated infections are one of the most preventable causes of leading mortality in the U.S," the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has developed a comprehensive national plan to fight HAIS. A five-point draft strategy was developed by HHS for the plan:
- Establishing an HHS Steering Committee for the Prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infections to develop an action plan.
- Beginning to prioritize, in partnership with the HHS Secretary's Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), the significant scientific questions that need to be addressed to move the field forward rapidly and the current 1,200 recommended clinical practices to facilitate rapid implementation amongst health care organizations.
- Identifying and explore policy options for regulatory oversight of recommended practices and provide critical compliance assistance to select hospitals.
- Working to establish greater consistency and compatibility of HAI data through developing standardized definitions and measures for HAIs.
- Striving to build on the principles of transparency and consumer choice to create incentives and motivate health care organizations and providers to provide better, more efficient care.
The priority recommendations for each key plan areas are as follows:
Prevention and Implementation
- Progress toward five-year national prevention targets
- Use and improve the metrics and supporting systems needed to assess progress toward meeting the targets
- Consider recommendations, grouped by priority module, outlined for each of the guidelines addressed
Research
- Perform Research Projects to Address Specific Knowledge Gaps (Basic Science, Epidemiology, and Practices)
— Basic Science
Develop strategies for preventing and/or eliminating biofilms associated with medical devices
- Epidemiology
— Study the epidemiology of bloodstream infections that occur outside of the hospital
— Establish the preventability of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) through a regional hospital collaborative intervention
— Establish the preventability of unnecessary antimicrobial use through a multicenter collaborative intervention
— Establish the preventability of surgical-site infection (SSI) through a multicenter collaborative intervention
- Practices
— Assess the effectiveness of the ICU-wide application of a MRSA decolonization strategy
- Perform Research Projects to Enhance the Implementation and Impact of Existing, Evidence-Based Infection Control Practices
— Investigate the human cultural and organizational barriers to successful implementation of practices at the unit and institutional levels
— Develop and evaluate novel and automatable strategies for measuring HAIs
— Evaluate and validate standardized post- discharge surveillance methodology
— Develop proxy measures for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) (i.e., acute lung injury) for interfacility comparisons
— Develop standardized methods for measuring and reporting compliance with broad-based prevention practices (e.g., hand hygiene)
Information Systems and Technology
- Form an Interagency Working Group to enhance the federal capacity to lead a national prevention strategy
- Conduct a comprehensive HAI database inventory to guide future plans for near-, mid-, and long-term integration and interoperability projects and to establish the extent of definitional alignment and data element standardization needed to link HAI data across the nation
- Enhance individual agency systems to extend their coverage or establish new interfaces with other systems
- Accelerate transition to electronic reporting by health care facilities to reduce their reporting burden and increase timeliness, efficiency, comprehensiveness, and reliability of the data
Incentives and Oversight Group
- Improve regulatory oversight of hospitals and CMS oversight of the hospital accreditation program by refining the current method of measuring Accreditation Organization performance, enhancing surveyor training and tools, and adding sources and uses of infection control data
- Continue to incorporate measures of infection prevention and outcomes into Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Plan methodology through implementing performance-based payment for hospitals, including measures of infection prevention and outcomes as a basis for payment
- Expand measures in CMS Hospital Compare, which improves the quality and transparency of hospital care by increasing public accountability and provides consumers access to important hospital quality of care measures
Outreach and Messaging
- Increase support for the HHS action plan to prevent HAIs
Increase knowledge and awareness of key messages and prevention practices among providers, consumers, the media, and general public
Emphasizing that 'health care-associated infections are one of the most preventable causes of leading mortality in the U.S," the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has developed a comprehensive national plan to fight HAIS. A five-point draft strategy was developed by HHS for the plan:You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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