January 2017 Issue of Becker's Infection Control and Clinical Quality

On the Cover

PATIENT SAFETY PRIORITIES IN 2017

CDC’s 7 Public Health Threats in Focus for 2017
The CDC had a busy year in 2016, working on Zika, antibiotic resistance and more. Click here to continue >>

Redefining Patient Safety in 2017 — 6 Thoughts From IHI CEO Derek Feeley
Although much progress was made in terms of patient safety in 2016, there is still much more work to be done in 2017 and beyond, according to Derek Feeley, president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Click here to continue >>

ECRI Names 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2017 — Infusion Errors, Scope Cleaning Top List
ECRI Institute released its “Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2017” report in November, featuring an array of issues, including infusion errors, inadequate cleaning of complex reusable instruments and infections linked with heater-cooler devices. Click here to continue >>

INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY

769 Hospitals See Medicare Payments Cut Over High HAC Rates: 6 Things to Know
The federal government is cutting 769 hospitals’ Medicare payments in fiscal year 2017 for having the highest rates of hospital-acquired conditions. Click here to continue >>

FDA Bans Powdered Gloves, Citing Risks to Patients and Providers
Following through on a rule proposed in March, the Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule Dec. 19 banning powered gloves for healthcare workers, as they “present an unreasonable and substantial risk of illness or injury.” Click here to continue >>

How Does Hospital Patient Room Design Affect HAI Rates?
A hospital’s infrastructure, including accessibility of antiseptic hand rub dispensers and single-or multi-bed patient rooms, can influence healthcare-associated colonization and infection rates, according to a study in Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control. Click here to continue >>

First Cases of Deadly Fungal Infection Reported in US: 8 Things to Know
In June 2016, the CDC issued a warning to hospitals about an emerging, deadly yeast infection making its way across the globe. Click here to continue >>

Infectious Disease Death Trends in the US: 8 Key Points
Infectious diseases were responsible for 5.4 percent of deaths in the U.S. from 1980 through 2014, though the top-killing diseases changed throughout that 34-year span, according to research published in JAMA. Click here to continue >>

A Culture of Support: 4 Ways to Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance
As healthcare embarks onward through the era of value-based care, hospitals are under mounting pressure to reduce the spread of healthcare-associated infections to improve outcomes and avoid fiscal penalties. Click here to continue >>

National Patient Safety Efforts Save $28B, More Than 100k Lives Since 2010
From 2010 through 2015, national efforts to reduce hospital-acquired conditions saved the lives of approximately 125,000 patients and reduced overall healthcare costs by $28 billion, according to a report released by HHS in December. Click here to continue >>

New SSI Guidance Emphasizes Patients’ Role in Infection Prevention
The American College of Surgeons and the Surgical Infection Society issued new guidelines to prevent, detect and manage surgical site infections that focus in part on the role patients themselves play in preventing infections. Click here to continue >>

WHO Updates SSI Prevention Guidelines: 29 Ways to Prevent Infections
The World Health Organization released a list of 29 concrete recommendations to prevent surgical site infections in November, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Click here to continue >>

Senate Committee Deems Concurrent Surgeries Unsafe, Urges Hospitals to Ban Them
After a nine-month review of 20 hospitals’ concurrent surgery processes, the Senate Finance Committee released a report in December calling for all hospitals to forbid the practice, according to The Boston Globe. Click here to continue >>

31 Low-Performing Teaching Hospitals for Central Line Infection Prevention
Highly preventable central-line infections were cut in half between 2008 and 2014, according to the CDC. Click here to continue >>

Study: Overlapping Surgeries Prove Safe at Mayo
Coordinating surgeries so a physician has two patients in operating rooms at the same time is safe and produces the same outcomes as non-overlapping surgeries at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., according to a study published in December in the Annals of Surgery. Click here to continue >>

Robotic Instruments Are Nearly Impossible to Clean Completely, Study Shows
Removing all contamination from robotic surgical instruments, even after cleaning multiple times, is close to impossible, according to a study in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Click here to continue >>

Survey Shows Poor Adherence to CLABSI Prevention Guidelines Worldwide
Few hospitals worldwide follow common central line recommendations designed to reduce the number of central line-associated bloodstream infections, according to survey results published in Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control. Click here to continue >>

Soiled Linens Could be Surface C. diff Contamination Source
Dirty linens from healthcare facilities may be a source of environmental Clostridium difficile contamination, according to a paper published in FEMS Microbiology Letters. Click here to continue >>

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE & STEWARDSHIP

Community Hospitals’ Antibiotic Stewardship Challenge: 4 Thoughts From Intermountain’s Stewardship Director
A recent study conducted by researchers from Intermountain Medical Center and the University of Utah School of Medicine, both in Salt Lake City, found the rates of antibiotic use in community hospitals to be on par with academic medical centers, even though the smaller hospitals tend to treat less complex patients. Click here to continue >>

‘Nightmare Bacteria’ Detected on US Pig Farm
Bacteria with genetic resistance to last-resort antibiotics called carbapenems were detected on a U.S. pig farm for the first time, according to a new study published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Click here to continue >>

CDC Publishes Antibiotic Stewardship Guidance for Outpatient Settings: 4 Core Elements
Roughly 60 percent of U.S. antibiotic use in humans is received in outpatient settings, according to the CDC, making that care setting critically important in the fight against antibiotic resistance. Click here to continue >>

Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Detected in Polluted Air
Traces of antibiotic-resistant bacteria were detected in polluted city air, suggesting smog may be contributing to the rise of drug-resistant infections, according to a recent study published in Microbiome. Click here to continue >>

Study Links Antibiotic Resistance With Chlorhexidine Exposure
When Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria are exposed to disinfectants containing chlorhexidine, the bacteria can become resistant to colistin, a last-resort antibiotic, according to a study published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Click here to continue >>

Syphilis Resurgence Linked to Antibiotic-Resistant, Pandemic Strain 
Rates of syphilis infection, once hampered by the discovery of penicillin, have been rising in recent years. Click here to continue >>

WWI Antiseptic Could Prove Useful in Superbug Fight
A century-old topical antiseptic can effectively protect against the common cold and shows potential for use in the battle against antibiotic resistance, according to a recent study published in the journal of Nucleic Acids Research. Click here to continue >>

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT

Fiscal Penalties for Low-Performing Hospitals Linked to Improved Readmission Rates
The financial penalties instituted by the ACA’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program were associated with a reduction in readmissions, an analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found. Click here to continue >>

Dr. Don Berwick’s 3 Thoughts on the Intersection of Care Quality & Politics
Don Berwick, MD, said his “head is spinning” from the election, even after months have passed since Republican Donald Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8. Click here to continue >>

Hospitals’ CMS Star Ratings Linked to Cities’ Stress Level
Hospitals in stressed cities — cities with high poverty, unemployment rates, divorce rates and poor health conditions — tend to have lower overall star ratings from CMS than hospitals in less-stressed areas, according to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine. Click here to continue >>

49 Hospitals With the Lowest Readmission Rates
Even though recent studies have called into question if low readmission rates are a sign of a high-quality hospital, hospitals in the U.S. are still financially punished for high readmission rates as part of CMS’ Hospital Readmission Reduction Program — but the following hospitals do not have that problem. Click here to continue >>

Female Physicians’ Patients Have Lower Death & Readmission Rates, Study Finds
Medicare patients treated by female physicians have lower 30-day mortality and readmission rates than those treated by male physicians, according to a study recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Click here to continue >>

Huddle Up: Why Daily Meetings Are Vital to Sustaining Quality Improvement
Often, quality improvement in healthcare settings is treated as a one-time effort, with people coming together once in awhile to focus on quality improvement and then returning to their daily jobs. Click here to continue >>

Leapfrog Names 2016 Top Hospitals: 7 Things to Know
The Leapfrog Group named its Top Hospitals for 2016 in December, and 115 hospitals made the cut in four categories: children’s hospitals, general hospitals, teaching hospitals and rural hospitals. Click here to continue >>

Patients in Worst Hospitals 3 Times More Likely to Die, Study Concludes
A “substantial opportunity for outcomes improvement in the U.S. healthcare system” exists, researchers concluded after finding mortality and patient safety differed greatly between top- and bottom-decile hospitals, as well as geographically. Click here to continue >>

SPOTLIGHT ON OPIOID EPIDEMIC

CDC Director Says ‘Urgent Action is Needed’: 13 Data Points on the Opioid Epidemic
New data from the CDC show drug overdose deaths, including opioid overdose deaths, continue to rise. Click here to continue >>

Survey: 5 Findings on Opioid Prescription Behaviors in 2016
A little over 50 percent of physicians from all specialties have reduced the amount of opioids they prescribe, according to a nationwide, online poll, conducted by Sermo for The Boston Globe. Click here to continue >>

CDC: Heroin Overdose Deaths Surpass Gun Homicides for First Time
Heroin overdose deaths narrowly surpassed gun homicides as the more prolific killer in 2015, according to new CDC data relayed by The Washington Post. Nearly 13,000 people died from heroin overdoses in 2015, marking a 2,000-case increase from the year prior. Click here to continue >>

US Sees 205% Surge in Opioid Poisoning Among Toddlers Since 1997
From 1997 to 2012, the number of children hospitalized for opioid poisoning surged dramatically, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics. Click here to continue >>

Overdoses, Falls Fuel Rise of Preventable Deaths by Unintentional Injury, CDC Says
While preventable deaths related to heart disease, cancer and stroke have declined in recent years, preventable deaths caused by unintentional injuries have been on the rise, according to the CDC. Click here to continue >>

US Surgeon General Issues Call to Action in Fight Against Opioid, Alcohol Abuse
The U.S. Surgeon General issued a call to action in November to end the epidemic of drug and alcohol addiction, which he said is both under-appreciated and under-treated in the U.S., according to Reuters. Click here to continue >>

Opioids May Not Help Chronic Wound Patients Heal, Study Shows
Patients suffering from chronic wounds heal faster when they do not receive opioids as compared to when they do, according to a study published in Wound Repair and Regeneration. Click here to continue >>

The Opioid Epidemic’s Geographic Footprint: 4 Things to Know
More than 33,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2015, continuing a consistent upward trend in the rate of opioid-related deaths in the United States. Click here to continue >>

1 in 3 Long-Term Opioid Users Say They’re Addicted: 3 Survey Takeaways
One-third of long-term prescription opioid users said they were physically dependent on the drugs, according to a collaborative survey from The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Click here to continue >>

Treating Pain Amid the Opioid Epidemic: 4 Questions With University of Tennessee Medical Center’s CMO
Knox County, Tenn., home to University of Tennessee Medical Center, tallied 118 deaths related to opioid overdoses in the first seven months of 2016. Click here to continue >>

RECENT CNO, CMO AND CHIEF QUALITY OFFICER MOVES

Hospital & Health System CNO, CMO and Chief Quality Officer Moves