APIC Study: Hospitals Still Struggle With Infections

Healthcare-associated infections continue to be an obstacle that hospitals struggle to overcome, according to a study by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

More than half of the surveys respondents said catheter-related bloodstream infections remain a persistent problem due to lack of time directed toward prevention, improper equipment maintenance, lack of time to adequately train staff, inability to reinforce use of best practices and use of time-consuming paper-based system.

Although half of the respondents agree their leadership acknowledge the problem of infections, only 30 percent report that their leaders are willing to spend the money for preventative measures.

"Bloodstream infections from catheters are nearly 100 percent preventable with clear, actionable steps," said APIC President Cathryn Murphy, RN, PhD, CIC, in an APIC news release. Yet, approximately 80,000 patients in the U.S. become infected by CRBSIs, with about 30,000 of those patients dying as a result of those infections.

Read the APIC study on healthcare-associated infections (pdf).

Read more news from APIC:

-APIC Urges FDA to Issue Proposed Rule on Unique Device Identification for Medical Devices
-APIC Publishes Guide on Hemodialysis Infection Prevention
-APIC Launches Infection Prevention Program Evaluation Tool

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