September Issue of Becker's Infection Control and Clinical Quality

On the Cover

	Safety Stand-Down: How Borrowing a Military Practice Boosted This Hospital's Hand Hygiene Compliance to 94% Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, was struggling with low hand hygiene compliance rates until it took a page out of the military's book and implemented a safety standdown, ceasing nonessential hospital activities on all units to discuss action plans to improve hand hygiene. Click here to continue >>
	What Does It Take to Be a CMS 5-Star Hospital? Hoag Orthopedic CEO Shares His Hospital's Approach Hoag Orthopedic Institute in Irvine, Calif., was placed in elite company in July when it received a five-star rating from CMS as part of the agency's Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating program, and Carlos Prietto, MD, the hospital's CEO, credits with entire team for the top-notch rating. Click here to continue >>
	To Target Patient Experience Improvement Efforts, Get the Patient Involved Hospitals and health systems are laser-focused on improving patient experience, to the point of disaggregating HCAHPS scores and tying providers' individual financial incentives to them — to the dismay of CMS officials. Click here to continue >>

EXECUTIVE BRIEFING

Safeguarding the Healthcare Environment Against Clostridium difficile: Products, Protocols and Planning for the Future
Clostridium difficile is a spore-forming bacterium capable of causing gastrointestinal conditions ranging from diarrhea to colitis. Click here to continue >>

How Adopting a Rigid Tray Container System Can Increase Efficiencies & Provide Patient Safety
North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, Minn., recently started seeing an increased volume of higher-acuity patients in its operating room, putting an immediate strain on the hospital’s sterile processing department. Click here to continue >>

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT 

CMS Releases Overall Hospital Star Ratings: 12 Things to Know
After a three-month delay and negative chatter from many stakeholder groups, CMS released its Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating program in full July 27 on its Hospital Compare website. Click here to continue >>

Where Are the 102 Hospitals That Received 5 Stars From CMS?
The 102 hospitals that received a fivestar rating from CMS’ new Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating are sprinkled throughout 29 states. Click here to continue >>

Where Are the Hospitals That Received 1 Star From CMS?
The 129 hospitals that received a one-star rating from CMS’ new Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating program are located in 26 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Click here to continue >>

US News Names 20 Hospitals to Its Honor Roll: 6 Things to Know
U.S. News & World Report released its 2016-17 Best Hospitals rankings in August, and Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic came out on top, ousting Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital as the No. 1 hospital in the nation. Click here to continue >>

How Did CMS Rate US News’ 20 Honor Roll Hospitals?
U.S. News & World Report released its 2016-17 hospital rankings Aug. 2, roughly a week on the heels of CMS releasing its Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating program. Click here to continue >>

Hospitals Disposing of Organs, Refusing Transplants to Maintain Federal Performance Ratings
U.S. hospitals are increasingly discarding less-than perfect organs, denying the sickest patients on organ waitlists lifesaving transplants out of fear poor outcomes will yield worse federal 
performance ratings, according to STAT. Click here to continue >>

READMISSION REDUCTION

CMS Penalizes 2.6k Hospitals for High Readmissions: 5 Statistics
In fiscal year 2017, CMS will withhold $528 million in Medicare reimbursements to hospitals with higher-than-expected readmission rates as part of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, reports Kaiser Health News. Click here to continue >>

The 49 Hospitals Facing the Highest Readmission Penalties From Medicare
As part of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, Medicare will cut payments to 2,597 hospitals by anywhere from 0.01 percent to the maximum of 3 percent for fiscal year 2017. Click here to continue >>

Study: Medication Reconciliation Programs Halve Hospital Readmissions — 6 Findings
Hospital readmission decreased 50 percent when pharmacists reviewed patients’ medication regimens and provided counseling during transitions from hospital to home, Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS Health Research Institute found. Click here to continue >>

Nearly 20% of Hospitalized Patients Are Released With Unstable Vital Signs
Close to one in five hospitalized patients are released from the hospital with vital sign instabilities, which can be linked to readmissions or death, according to a new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Click here to continue >>

Older Patients’ Loss of Independence Linked to Higher Readmission, Death Rates
Loss of independence is defined as a decline in function or mobility, increased care needs at home or discharge to a nonhome destination. Click here to continue >>

30% of Children’s Hospital Readmissions May Be Preventable
Nearly 30 percent of 30-day readmissions at Boston Children's Hospital may have been preventable, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics. Click here to continue >>

Accidental Zika Infection at Pittsburgh Lab
A lab worker from the University of Pittsburgh accidentally stuck herself with a needle while working with the Zika virus, resulting in what appears to be the first known Zika infection occurring in a laboratory, according to The New York Times. Click here to continue >>

Initiatives Aimed at Lowering Hospital Admissions Also Lower Readmissions, Study Finds
Programs that include strategies to simultaneously lower hospital admissions and readmissions can be successful in communities where patients tend to be sicker when hospitalized, according to a study published in Health Affairs. Click here to continue >>

New App Could Lead to Big Savings by Reducing Readmissions
Graduate students from Binghamton (N.Y.) University have created an Android-based mobile application designed to help hospitals reduce 30-day readmission rates and save money by avoiding penalties. Click here to continue >>

INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY 

Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria Can Cause HAIs, but How Do They Come Into the Hospital?
Multidrug-resistant bacteria play a big role in thousands of hospital-acquired infection-related deaths every year. Click here to continue >>

3 Ways to Get Safe Surgical Attire Protocol to Stick
Through a 2012 audit, Hanford, Calif.-based Central Valley Network, part of Roseville, Calif.-based Adventist Health, found compliance with safe surgical attire protocols were low, and then took action to improve them. Click here to continue >>

Brazil Reports First Case of Superbug Resistant to Last-Resort Antibiotics
Mcr-1, the gene that enables deadly bacteria to become resistant to even last-resort antibiotics, such as colistin, has been identified in a Brazilian patient for the first time, according to research published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Click here to continue >>

AORN Responds to ACS’ New Surgeon Dress Code Statement
The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses has taken issue with parts of the American College of Surgeons’ new guidelines on appropriate surgeon attire, which were released Aug. 8. Click here to continue >>

American College of Surgeons Issues New Dress Code
The American College of Surgeons issued new guidelines Aug. 8 on appropriate surgeon attire in and out of the operating room.  Click here to continue >>

Should Antimicrobial Curtains Be Cleaned Between Patients?
After a hospital in Milwaukee, Wis., switched all of its curtains to an antimicrobial fabric, it changed policies to only clean or exchange curtains if they were visibly soiled. Click here to continue >>

Traditional Hand Hygiene Audits Exaggerate Compliance Gap Between Nurses, Physicians
Overt hand hygiene compliance audits have shown a large gap in compliance between nurses and physicians, with nurses washing their hands more often than physicians. Click here to continue >>

Chlorhexidine Bathing Can Reduce MRSA Acquisition in ICUs, Study Finds
Daily chlorhexidine bathing in intensive care units where acquisition rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are high can bring those MRSA rates down significantly, according to a study in the American Journal of Infection Control. Click here to continue >>

Which Factor is Associated With Hand Hygiene Compliance —Age or Physician Specialty? 
Five researchers have suggested physician specialty is more closely related to hand hygiene compliance rates than a physician’s age. Click here to continue >>

Is Household Decolonization of MRSA Effective?
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is notoriously difficult to get rid of because people can carry MRSA without becoming infected and then pass it on to others. Click here to continue >>

FDA: Custom Ultrasonics’ AERs Can Be Used for Cleaning Flexible Endoscopes, But Not Duodenoscopes
The Food and Drug Administration is continuing to advise healthcare facilities to forgo using Custom Ultrasonics’ System 83 Plus Automated Endoscope Reprocessors for reprocessing of duodenoscopes. Click here to continue >>

Too Much of a Good Thing? Not Possible for Hand Hygiene Compliance, Study Finds
The well-known idiom that having too much of a good thing can be harmful doesn’t apply when it comes to hand hygiene compliance, according to a study in Emerging Infectious Diseases — boosting hand hygiene compliance from an already high rate (85 percent) to higher than 95 percent was associated with a decrease in healthcare-associated infections. Click here to continue >>

3 Key Risk Factors for Patientto-Patient Transmission of Resistant Bacteria
Researchers have identified three key factors that increase the risk for patients to pass on carbapenemase-producing carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacecae to another patient, helping explain why some contacts get the bacteria but others do not. Click here to continue >>

9-Step Infection Prevention Bundle Halves Spine Surgery SSIs
After a hospital instituted a nine-part infection prevention bundle for spine surgery, surgical site infections fell 50 percent, while case costs also fell, according to a study in JAMA Surgery. Click here to continue >>

PATIENT EXPERIENCE

Ineffective Receptionists Linked With Lower Patient Satisfaction
When receptionists fail to drive conversations with patients forward or prematurely end calls before confirming details on matters like future appointments, a correlated dip in patient satisfaction occurs, according to a new study published in British Journal of General Practice. Click here to continue >>

Patient Caregivers More Critical of Hospital Experience Than Patients Themselves: 4 Takeaways
The majority (60 percent) of patients have loved ones actively supporting them during a hospital stay, which could be bad news for hospitals’ patient experience scores. Click here to continue >>

To What Extent Does Hourly Rounding Impact Patient Experience Scores?
The link between hourly rounding and patient experience outcomes just got stronger. Click here to continue >>

4 Statistics on HCAHPS Vender Use, Satisfaction
Press Ganey is the most widely used and highly regarded HCAHPS survey vendor in the market, according to a peer60 survey of 396 hospital leaders. Click here to continue >>

Top 55 Hospitals Patients Would Definitely Recommend
When patients fill out HCAHPS surveys about their experience receiving care in a hospital, one question might say more than any other about the overall feeling an organization left them with: Would they recommend that hospital to others? Click here to continue >>