Go Epicenters!

The CDC just announced ongoing funding of the Prevention Epicenters (PE) program. You can read John Jernigan’s post at Safe Healthcare for the details. We have been involved in this program in the past (the University of Iowa participated during the first two rounds, and both Sloan-Kettering and Maryland were Epicenters while Eli was in those locations). Loreen Herwaldt worked with our Iowa group to put together a great application for this round. Alas, we fell short—but to a group of sites with real depth in the science and practice of healthcare epidemiology.

Collaborating within a multicenter research consortium has its challenges, and progress often seems painfully slow. It’s impressive, then, to look at the body of work that has come out of the PE program, especially given the shoestring budget from which it has been funded. Ten million dollars sounds like an awful lot of money, but spread over 5 centers (each of which represents a healthcare system) and 5 years, minus the institutional overhead, it doesn’t leave much to do studies that might lead to new insights in prevention. Too often this means scaling down prospective interventional trials into less-definitive-but-still-valuable observational studies, simply for want of funds.

Stacked against the morbidity, mortality and cost of health care associated infections, HAI prevention research is massively underfunded. The PE program is a great example, but should be scaled up 10-100 fold.