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Little is known about prescribers’ attitudes regarding clinical nurses and antimicrobial stewardship. We conducted focus groups of prescribers and inquired about attitudes regarding nurses and stewardship. During 6 focus groups, prescribers were receptive to nursing involvement in stewardship activities, but noted structural barriers and knowledge gaps that should be addressed.

Objective:To sustainably improve cleaning of high-touch surfaces (HTSs) in acute-care hospitals using a multimodal approach to education, reduction of barriers to cleaning, and culture change for environmental services workers.Design:Prospective, quasi-experimental, before-and-after intervention study.Setting:The study was conducted in 2 academic acute-care hospitals, 2 community hospitals, and an academic pediatric and women’s hospital.Participants:Frontline environmental services workers.Intervention:A 5-module educational program, using principles of adult learning theory, was developed and presented to environmental services workers. Audience response system (ARS), videos, demonstrations, role playing, and graphics were used to illustrate concepts of and the rationale for infection prevention strategies. Topics included hand hygiene, isolation precautions, personal protective equipment (PPE), cleaning protocols, and strategies to overcome barriers. Program evaluation included ARS questions, written evaluations, and objective assessments of occupied patient room cleaning. Changes in hospital-onset C. difficile infection (CDI) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) bacteremia were evaluated.Results:On average, 357 environmental service workers participated in each module. Most (93%) rated the presentations as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ and agreed that they were useful (95%), reported that they were more comfortable donning/doffing PPE (91%) and performing hand hygiene (96%) and better understood the importance of disinfecting HTSs (96%) after the program. The frequency of cleaning individual HTSs in occupied rooms increased from 26% to 62% (P < .001) following the intervention. Improvement was sustained 1-year post intervention (P < .001). A significant decrease in CDI was associated with the program.Conclusion:A novel program that addressed environmental services workers’ knowledge gaps, challenges, and barriers was well received and appeared to result in learning, behavior change, and sustained improvements in cleaning.

ObjectiveTo integrate electronic clinical decision support tools into clinical practice and to evaluate the impact on indwelling urinary catheter (IUC) use and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs).Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis 4-phase observational study included all inpatients at a multicampus, academic medical center between 2011 and 2015.InterventionsPhase 1 comprised best practices training and standardization of electronic documentation. Phase 2 comprised real-time electronic tracking of IUC duration. In phase 3, a triggered alert reminded clinicians of IUC duration. In phase 4, a new IUC order (1) introduced automated order expiration and (2) required consideration of alternatives and selection of an appropriate indication.ResultsOverall, 2,121 CAUTIs, 179,070 new catheters, 643,055 catheter days, and 2,186 reinsertions occurred in 3·85 million hospitalized patient days during the study period. The CAUTI rate per 10,000 patient days decreased incrementally in each phase from 9·06 in phase 1 to 1·65 in phase 4 (relative risk [RR], 0·182; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0·153–0·216; PPPP=·0017).ConclusionsThe phased introduction of decision support tools was associated with progressive declines in new catheters, total catheter days, and CAUTIs. Clinical decision support tools offer a viable and scalable intervention to target hospital-wide IUC use and hold promise for other quality improvement initiatives.

OBJECTIVETo describe the use of antimicrobial stewardship policies and to investigate factors associated with implementation in a national sample of acute care hospitals.DESIGNCross-sectional survey.PARTICIPANTSInfection Control Directors from acute care hospitals participating in the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).METHODSAn online survey was conducted in the Fall of 2011. A subset of hospitals also provided access to their 2011 NHSN annual survey data.RESULTSResponses were received from 1,015 hospitals (30% response rate). The majority of hospitals (64%) reported the presence of a policy; use of antibiograms and antimicrobial restriction policies were most frequently utilized (83% and 65%, respectively). Respondents from larger, urban, teaching hospitals and those that are part of a system that shares resources were more likely to report a policy in place (PP=.014).CONCLUSIONThis study provides a snapshot of the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship policies in place in U.S. hospitals and suggests that statewide efforts in California are achieving their intended effect. Further research is needed to identify factors that foster the adoption of these policies.Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2014;00(0): 1–4

Effective severity criteria are needed to guide management of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). In this retrospective study, outcomes were compared between patients with mild-moderate versus severe CDI according to 3 different severity criteria: those included in the 2010 Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America/Infectious Diseases Society of America guidelines, those from a recent clinical trial, and our hospital-specific guidelines.

Background and Objective.Assessing the impact of 2009 influenza A (H1N1) on healthcare workers (HCWs) is important for pandemic planning.Methods.We retrospectively analyzed employee health records of HCWs at a tertiary care center in New York City with influenza-like illnesses (ILI) and confirmed influenza from March 31, 2009, to February 28, 2010. We evaluated HCWs' clinical presentations during the first and second wave of the pandemic, staff absenteeism, exposures among HCWs, and association between high-risk occupational exposures to respiratory secretions and infection.Results.During the pandemic, 40% (141/352) of HCWs with ILI tested positive for influenza, representing a 1% attack rate among our 13,066 employees. HCWs with influenza were more likely to have fever, cough, and tachycardia. When compared with the second wave, cases in the first wave were sicker and at higher risk of exposure to patients' respiratory secretions (P = .049). HCWs with ILI- with and without confirmed influenza-missed on average 4.7 and 2.7 work days, respectively (P = .001). Among HCWs asked about working while ill, 65% (153/235) reported they did so (mean, 2 days).Conclusions.HCWs in the first wave had more severe ILI than those in the second wave and were more likely to be exposed to patients' respiratory secretions. HCWs with ILI often worked while ill. Timely strategies to educate and support HCWs were critical to managing this population during the pandemic.

Days of therapy (DOTs) are an important measure to quantify antimicrobial use but may not reflect patients' true antimicrobial exposure. Three methods of calculating DOTs were compared to determine whether including “exposure days,” when antimicrobials are given less frequently than daily due to renal dysfunction, makes a difference.

Objective.To test in a real-world setting the recommendations for measuring infection with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC).Methods.Using data from 3 hospital settings within a healthcare network, we applied the SHEA/HICPAC recommendations to measure methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection and colonization. Data were obtained from the hospitals' electronic surveillance system and were supplemented by manual medical record review as necessary. Additionally, we tested (1) different definitions for nosocomial incidence, (2) the effect of excluding patients not at risk from the denominator for hospital-onset incidence, and (3) the appropriate time period to use when including or excluding patients with a prior history of MRSA infection or colonization from nosocomial rates. Negative binomial regression models were used to test for differences between rate definitions. A rating scale was created for each metric, assessing the extent to which manual or electronic data elements were required.Results.There was no statistically significant difference between using 72 hours or 3 calendar days as the cutoff to define hospital-onset incidence. Excluding patients not at risk from the denominator when calculating hospital-onset incidence led to statistically significant increases in rates. When excluding patients with a prior history of MRSA infection or colonization from nosocomial incidence rates, rates were similar regardless of whether we looked at 1, 2, or 3 years' worth of prior data.Conclusions.The SHEA/HICPAC MDRO metrics are useful but can be challenging to implement. We include in our description of the data sources and processes required to calculate these metrics information that may simplify the process for institutions.