News

In May 2009, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), under the auspices of the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System final rule, introduced revisions to the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) Conditions for Coverage (42 CFR 416.2 – 416.52). Included in the new conditions for coverage (CFCs) was a rigorous focus on demonstrated infection prevention and control knowledge and practice in an ASC. In 416.51 Conditions for coverage-Infection control, an ASC must maintain an infection control program that minimizes infections and communicable diseases. The facility must provide a functional and sanitary environment for the provision of surgical services by adhering to professionally acceptable standards of practice, and the infection prevention program must include documentation that the ASC has considered, selected and implemented nationally recognized infection control guidelines, such as those issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The program must be implemented under the direction of a designated, qualified and licensed professional who has training in infection control; it must be an integral part of the ASC’s quality assessment and performance improvement program; and it must contain a plan of action for preventing, identifying and managing infections and communicable diseases and for immediately implementing corrective and preventive measures that result in improvement.

This November marks the 15-year anniversary of the Institute of Medicine report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System.” This groundbreaking analysis of our health system estimated that preventable medical errors cause 98,000 inpatient hospital deaths each year in the United States. Since it was published, hospitals and other care providers have led impressive efforts to better measure, report and prevent harm events. To give just a few examples, hospitals participating in Premier’s QUEST collaborative have been improving in 23 distinct measures of potential harm, preventing an estimated 17,991 potential patient safety events. Similarly, hospitals participating in the federal Partnership for Patients program report thousands of avoided harm events and dramatic savings as a result.

In recent research published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Saint Louis University investigators report catching integrase, the part of retroviruses like HIV that is responsible for insertion of the viral DNA into human cell DNA, in the presence of a drug designed to thwart it. This achievement sets the stage to use X-ray crystallography to develop complete images of HIV that include integrase, which in turn will help scientists develop new treatments for the illness.