In it to win it

Good news going into the weekend: the CDC just declared Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) to be one of their first six “Winnable Battles”. They have coined this term to describe “public health priorities with large-scale impact on health and with known, effective strategies to intervene.”

I hope this leads to more resources—not just for implementation but for novel prevention research. As we’ve pointed out before, there is more than one view of what it means to “win” the war on HAIs. By one assessment, we already know how to prevent HAIs. All we need to do is implement this knowledge and such infections will drop to zero (and if they don’t, we can finesse the definitions until they do!). A more nuanced view is that our current prevention strategies are effective, but only against the subset of infections those strategies target. That is, there are still infections that cause harm and for which we do not currently have effective prevention strategies. These differences in perspective are also well illustrated by Mike’s earlier post on hospital epidemiology and quality improvement.

Where you fall on this continuum makes a big difference in terms of where you’d like to see more resources. Should they be devoted primarily to implementation of existing strategies (and to “implementation science”), or to research addressing novel approaches to infection prevention? (I realize that the correct answer is "both". But resources, sadly, are not infinite)

*motivational poster image courtesy of Despair, Inc.