● HAIs kill more than 100,000 people every year and injure in excess of 2,000,000 

● These infections are avoidable!

Clinical experts, epidemiologists, and other specialists have determined that improving compliance of Hand Hygiene and Environmental Cleaning IC Performance would have a dramatic effect on these rates.

While hand washing and overall hygiene precautions have been identified as the primary elements leading to the spread of nosocomial infections, how come compliance is so low? 

○  It is estimated that for every person that contacts a bug, 10 others are colonized

○  C. Diff and MRSA are growing at alarming rates, and creating what are now called superbugs

○  Millions of individuals lives are forever changed by these unnecessary and avoidable infections.

Cost Breakdown

The cost of the infections on the healthcare system has been evaluated at US $20 billion every year in the United States (Center for Disease Control).

Some of the added costs come from:

○  Increased patient stay

○  Readmission due to infection

○  Increased prescriptions and antibiotic use

○  Unwarranted hospitalizations

○  Accrued number of long-term admissions

 Acute care facilities, incur costs significantly greater.

Some additional cost estimates recently reported in the US and Canada include:

● The median cost associated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be almost two times greater than the cost of methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus in a long-term care facility and more than twice the cost in acute care facilities.

● In acute care, the cost for precautions and management of patients colonized and/or infected with MRSA continues to increase:

○  Colonization with MRSA cost US $1,000 per patient in 1997 and now costs US $6,400 per patient

○  Infection with MRSA cost US $10,200 per patient in 1997 and now costs US $14,850

○  In a 2007 Canadian study, the cost per day for contact precautions was US $115 and the cost of MRSA control per patient was US $2,937.

● The incremental cost to prevent a case of nosocomial MRSA, from the hospital perspective, is under $20 (2005 CAD). This figure takes into account the cost of hospital control programs versus the cost of MRSA colonization and infection. It does not take into account societal costs of MRSA, which are significant.

● Another study conducted by the Duke Medical center looked at the cost of prevention measures vs. treatment costs of HAIs in 30 hospitals, and concluded that:

○  Using conservative estimates, the cost of HAI for the 30 study hospitals was close to 50 million USD. These hospitals had rates of HAI at or below nationally published rates.

○  The cost of HAI dwarfed the amount spent on IC programs in study hospitals by a factor of 10.

While these figures can be discussed but from a managerial perspective, it makes bottom line sense for health care facilities to ensure that proper surveillance and tracking technology be put in place to improve compliance and understanding of the facility’s practices.

HAI Leading Causes

● It is widely recognized by industry experts that the transfer of Infection can largely be attributed to contact measures, and further back to hygiene precautions. In particular hand hygiene and environmental cleaning.

● Compliance with hand washing among all types of healthcare workers remains poor average ranges between 20% and 50% with only few hospitals moving above the 50% mark.

Laws

● Beginning October, Medicare/Medicaid introduced new legislation effectively forcing hospitals to pay for HAIs themselves.