UNMC and its hospital partner, Nebraska Medicine, in conjunction with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), have established a center with a $2.4 million, three-year contract that will help health providers across Nebraska reduce the number of infections patients get in health care facilities.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded the funds to DHHS, which contracted with the medical center. It is part of a nationwide effort to reduce health care-associated infections (HAI).
The contract establishes the Nebraska Infection Control Assessment and Promotion Program (ICAP) at UNMC and Nebraska Medicine in Omaha.
The team will work with health facilities across the state to employ current guidelines and tools for infection prevention, said Mark Rupp, M.D., acting director of the new ICAP, chief of the UNMC Division of Infectious Diseases and medical director of the Nebraska Medicine Department of Infection Control & Epidemiology. In addition, the group will evaluate the status of existing capacities and policies, provider training and the capability to detect and control infectious disease outbreaks.
The CDC estimates that about 4 percent of hospitalized Americans develop a health care-associated infection.
“Four percent nationally may not sound like a lot, but when you realize there are tens of millions of hospitalized patients, this equates to one to two million infections per year and nearly 100,000 lives lost,” Dr. Rupp said. “Each acute care facility in Nebraska has an infection control program in place, therefore, the ICAP will emphasize efforts to prevent infections in other types of health facilities such as ambulatory surgical centers, long-term care facilities and critical access hospitals.”
Shelly Schwedhelm, Nebraska Medicine executive director of emergency preparedness & infection prevention, will provide administrative oversight for ICAP. She said the team will visit most types of facilities where patients are cared for, including long-term care, acute care, rehabilitation, surgical, and skilled nursing.
“There’s been a discernible decrease across the country in some types of infections because of the proven prevention protocols that have gone into place,” Schwedhelm said. “But other infections have persisted at unacceptably high rates. The best defense against these deadly threats is through educating health professionals on infection prevention best practices.”
Health care associated infections include:
- Central line-associated bloodstream infections;
- Catheter-associated urinary tract infections;
- Surgical site infections; and
- Infections due to multidrug-resistant organisms.