Infection Control Today Magazine

Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services (CMS)

HHS Finalizes New Rules to Cut Healthcare Regulations, Outmoded IC Instructions for ASCs

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced significant steps to reduce unnecessary, obsolete or burdensome regulations on American hospitals and healthcare providers. These steps will help achieve the key goal of President Obama’s regulatory ...More
2 weeks ago
Posted in News
Medicare Penalty Appears to Drive Hospital Infection Prevention Efforts

The 2008 decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to cease additional reimbursement to hospitals for certain healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) has led to enhanced focus on infection prevention and changes in practice by front-line staff, ...More
4 weeks ago
Posted in News, Policies and Practice
AAMI and ASHE to Collaborate on Response to CMS Directive

The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) is teaming up with the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) to explore potential solutions to a federal directive on maintenance schedules for medical equipment that has much of the ...More
February 21, 2012
Posted in News, Disinfection & Sterilization
Hospital Compare Website Now Includes CLABSI Data

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announces today that its Hospital Compare website now includes central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) data reported from hospital ICUs to CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). In many places, ...More
February 8, 2012
Posted in News
APIC Provides Free Endoscopy Webinar for ASCA Members

More than two years after Medicare's revised Conditions for Coverage (CfC) for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) went into effect, some endoscopy ASCs still have questions about the best ways to comply with the new infection control standards. Join the Association for ...More
September 21, 2011
Posted in News
Hospital Gown Helps Meet Government Initiative

Each year, approximately 34 million Americans undergo surgery. Millions undoubtedly associate being cold as part of their surgical experience. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) says that’s not okay, but for important reasons beyond patient comfort. ...More
November 23, 2010
Posted in News
APIC to Host Monthly Calls to Support CLABSI Reduction Strategies

At its 2010 annual meeting, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) launched its new "I Believe in Zero CLABSIs" campaign–a collaborative effort based on the national project titled, "OntheCUSP: StopBSI," being coordinated by the ...More
November 10, 2010
Posted in News
Get Ready for the New CLABSI Reporting Requirement

The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) is encouraging infection preventionists to educate themselves about the reporting of central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) on the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). This reporting is ...More
October 18, 2010
Posted in News
Hospitals Making Progress Toward Meeting Infection Reporting Requirements, Survey Finds

Hospitals tasked with meeting the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’(CMS) healthcare-associated infection (HAI) reporting requirements are making progress, according to a Premier healthcare alliance survey. By January 2011, as outlined in the FY 2011 final rule, ...More
September 8, 2010
Posted in News
Discarding Data a Dastardly Deed, Consumer Advocates Assert

By now you may have heard that the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has purged infection data from hospital records dating from 2005 to 2008 because it believed this data was too expensive to maintain and, according to a report from the St. Louis ...More
August 17, 2010
Posted in Blog