APIC urges Congress to fund CDC infection control programs

In light of continued federal budget constraints, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is asking Congress to support two programs under the Centers of Disease Control in the continuing effort to battle health care-acquired infections.

 

As readers of Inside the Joint Commission know, HAIs can cost hospitals and other health organizations billions of dollars a year even as they battle their own problems with day-to-day funding.

 

APIC says it has organized a coalition of 30 organizations, including several health care organizations and infection control industry representatives, to sign a letter to Congress calling for support of a budget bill that seeks $31.5 million for the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) and the Prevention Epicenters Program.

 

The CDC says the NHSN is “the nation’s most widely used healthcare-associated infection tracking system,” providing http://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/data to facilities and various regions of the country need to identify and deal with problem areas in infection control.

 

Working with the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, the Prevention Epicenters Program works directly with academic institutions to research questions surrounding HAIs, “antibiotic resistance, and other adverse events associated with healthcare.”

 

Says the letter to Congress: “CDC’s efforts to fight antimicrobial resistance are an essential part of our national strategy to protect patients from the threat of potentially untreatable infections. A recent issue of CDC’s Vital Signs noted that infections due to carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) bacteria that are resistant to nearly all available antibiotics are becoming more common. As reported by CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, these ‘nightmare bacteria’ kill up to one half of patients who get bloodstream infections from them and have now been reported in 42 states.”

 

The funding in question is in the fiscal year 2014 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, according to APIC.