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$34 million goes to battle hospital infections
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Nov. 14, 2011
The federal government is expanding funding for a program that has helped reduce central-line-associated bloodstream infections by 33%. In November, the Dept. of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality announced $34 million in fiscal-year 2011 grants to hospitals, academic medical centers and health researchers to prevent health care-associated infections.
Much of the money is going to the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program, known as CUSP, which has helped slash bloodstream infections and is now expanding its checklist-based approach to catheter-associated urinary tract infections, surgical site infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia. About one in 20 patients contracts an infection while in the hospital, HHS said. More information about CUSP is available at the AHRQ website (link).
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/11/14/prbf1114.htm.
