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Quality and quality improvement in healthcare has always been an assumed component of infection prevention, but it has taken on new meaning in an age of healthcare reform and the concurrent drive toward cost-containment and improved patient outcomes. For a word that is bandied about so frequently, what is its true meaning, and what does it portend for infection preventionists (IPs) who are tasked with playing a key role in performance improvement in acute care.

At the core of many infection prevention strategies is an elegant and simple tool: the checklist. Infection prevention actions in healthcare settings were listed as one of four recent objectives proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to tackle the morbidity and mortality associated with infections caused by drug-resistant organisms. These infections cause 23,000 deaths among the 2 million people who acquire them each year in the United States alone. Over the past decade, infection prevention efforts have had significant impact on other infection categories, such as healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Checklists have been a big part of this success. A decrease in HAIs was noted as one of the major 2013 public health accomplishments by the CDC. Since 2008, there has been a 44 percent decrease in central line bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) and a 20 percent decrease in the occurrence of surgical site infections (SSI).