Some good news for a change
Yesterday, CDC released a report on central line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI), which showed that these infections decreased in US ICUs from 3.64 to 1.65 infections/1,000 catheter days from 2001 to 2009. This represents a 58% reduction. Of note, CLABSIs due to Staph. aureus decreased by 73%, while those due to gram-negative organisms fell by 37%. CDC estimates that up to 27,000 lives were saved due to the infections averted.
Finally we have some higher quality data that shows that HAIs in the US are indeed being reduced. This is consistent with what each of us are seeing at our own hospitals. Importantly, this did not happen spontaneously. The reduction seen is due to countless hours of hard work by hospital epidemiologists, infection preventionists, and frontline providers. So we should all take a minute or two to savor this milestone. Obviously there is still more to do, but progress is being made.
Finally we have some higher quality data that shows that HAIs in the US are indeed being reduced. This is consistent with what each of us are seeing at our own hospitals. Importantly, this did not happen spontaneously. The reduction seen is due to countless hours of hard work by hospital epidemiologists, infection preventionists, and frontline providers. So we should all take a minute or two to savor this milestone. Obviously there is still more to do, but progress is being made.
Interesting to see that for the 2008-2009 estimates, the largest CLABSI burden is now found in hemodialysis (37K annually) and inpatient (non-ICU) wards (23K), rather than in the ICU (18K). The upper and lower bounds of sensitivity analyses overlapped for all settings, but it represents additional support for ensuring that prevention efforts that work in the ICU are also effective in these very different settings.
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