From the August 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which includes AHQR, has developed a four-pronged approach to implementing evidence-based practices, explains Cleeman. Called Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP), the system focuses on communication, teamwork and leadership within the individual health care facility.
CUSP consists of five steps:
• Educate staff on the science of safety.
• Assess the current patient safety culture.
• Partner with a senior hospital executive to improve communications and provide leadership.
• Analyze any problems that arise – and learn from them.
• Use a series of tools, including checklists, to improve teamwork and communication.
Thus far, approximately 990 hospitals in 45 states have started using the CUSP approach. “Using CUSP, rates of CLABSI have dropped by 35 percent in one year. We’ve prevented 430 cases of CPASI, 180 deaths and approximately $7 million in excess medical costs,” says Cleeman.
And that’s with fewer than 20 percent of U.S. hospitals participating. “Between research efforts and implementation efforts,” Cleeman adds, “the problem of HAIs promises to be improved significantly in 2012.”
Fighting the good fight
Research efforts are resulting in a number of products to help hospitals decrease HAIs. Typically, each addresses a small piece of the larger puzzle.
For instance, where do patients spend much of their time in a hospital? In the bed. “It’s the patient’s largest touch point,” says Bruce Rippe, COO and co-founder of Trinity Guardion, a manufacturer of bed protection systems.
“Studies link mattresses to HAIs,” says Dr. Edmond A. Hooker, associate professor of health services at Xavier University. “Studies show that if a previous patient had MRSA or C diff, the next patient is twice as likely to get that infection. Part of that is because mattresses, compared to floors, are much more porous – and much harder to clean.”
To address this, Trinity Guardion offers a launderable polyurethane bed cover system that contains an encapsulated anti-microbial silver additive and encompasses both mattress and bed deck. The cover provides an impermeable barrier between the patient and the mattress, protecting the patient from any bacteria that might have been left behind by a previous patient. “If the patient prevents one MRSA infection, it has paid for itself,” says Rippe.
Another approach is to zap the whole room with bacteria-killing light rays. Xenex’s PX-UV device uses xenon pulse technology, in a portable vacuum cleaner-sized device, to kill microorganisms without contact or chemicals. Users wheel the machine into the room, leave, hit the “on’ button via remote control and the UV pulse of the lamp penetrates cell walls fusing the DNA of the microorganisms. All in no more than 10 minutes.
