U.S. hospitals must ramp up efforts to track and prevent non-ventilator-associated, hospital-acquired pneumonia, healthcare leaders wrote in a commentary published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
The call to action comes from the National Organization to Prevent Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia. The task force, formed in 2020, includes leaders from the CDC, Veterans’ Health Administration and the Joint Commission, among other groups.
NVHAP is one of the most common and deadly healthcare-associated infections, but most hospitals don't track, report or actively prevent it, the task force wrote in the June 9 article.
The commentary calls for a national focus on the issue and outlines the research needed to improve NVHAP prevention, including a better understanding of its economic costs and a defined surveillance strategy.
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