Infection Control and Prevention

Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) prevention and reduction are longstanding quality and patient safety priorities. However, the level of attention and resources allocated to HAI prevention has fluctuated over the past decade. Leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals were making substantial progress in reducing HAIs. Given the large amount of resources devoted to HAI reduction, it’s critical we examine what has worked in the past and what strategies are needed to continue.

The AHA and its nonprofit subsidiary, the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET), have worked with partners to develop and compile infection prevention resources for a variety of health care professionals.

 
Dwayne Gordon & Richard Pratley

Getting to Near Zero with Infection Prevention

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a big problem in health systems across the country. HAIs can be defeated, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City recently experienced great success in getting to the magic number of zero with three different HAIs. Today's guest, Waleed Javaid, MD, Director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown, shares tried and true strategies he and his team have implemented that can be adapted by other health care organizations.

What is a CLABSI and How to Prevent It

In the health care field one of the scariest types of infections is called CLABSI, or Central Line-associated Bloodstream Infection. In this episode, Nishant Prasad, M.D., attending physician and program director of infectious diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, shares how they re-approached CLABSI prevention by deeply examining structure and process, and how their work got them to zero CLABSIs in the last year.

Nishant Prasad, M.D., and Marie Cleary-Fishman headshots


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FOUNDATIONAL RESOURCES

Project Firstline STRIVE – Foundational Infection Prevention Strategies:
TAP Strategy Learning Series videos    Competency-based Training, Audits, and Feedback
TeamSTEPPS video toolkit    Hand Hygiene
Antibiotic Stewardship    Strategies for Preventing HAIs
Hand Hygiene in Healthcare Settings Video Series    Environmental Cleaning
HAI Calculator Tools    Personal Protective Equipment
     Patient and Family Engagement
     Building a Business Case for Infection Prevention

 

INFECTION CONTROL RESOURCES

 

 


Connect, share, and engage with your peers by joining the IPC Challenges/Solutions subgroup on the AHA Living Learning Network today!

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