2012 Partnership in Prevention Award Winner Honored for Achievements in Eliminating HAIs

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) today recognized the Saint Raphael Campus of Yale New Haven Hospital with the 2012 Partnership in Prevention Award for achieving the greatest sustainable improvements towards eliminating healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

Co-sponsored by HHS, APIC, and SHEA, this inaugural annual award is based on the concepts of the National Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections: Roadmap to Elimination.

Every day, approximately one in every 20 people get an infection related to their inpatient hospital care. HAIs are infections that people acquire in a healthcare setting while they are receiving treatment for other conditions, and can be acquired anywhere that healthcare is delivered.

Preventing HAIs requires a multidisciplinary approach, implemented by a team that includes hospital administrators, environmental services staff, healthcare providers, and others throughout the care setting. During the two-year award evaluation period, the Saint Raphael Campus of Yale New Haven Hospital worked diligently to implement numerous best practices taken from infection control, clinical microbiology, and medical and nursing literature. Additionally, they put in place the kind of teamwork, innovation, and culture change needed to help reduce HAIs.

Across the nation, in acute-care facilities of every shape and size, were seeing that involving, and sometimes even broadening, the healthcare team in efforts that combine science with implementation results in success, said Jan Patterson, MD, MS, president of the the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).

It is especially fitting to recognize their accomplishments as we launch International Infection Prevention Week, which takes place Oct. 14-20.  The quality of the Partnership in Prevention Award applications, and the excellent programs they described, demonstrate that significant progress is being made in eliminating HAIs and protecting patients, says Michelle Farber, RN, CIC, APIC president. We hope that this increased attention will drive further adherence to, and support for, evidence-based interventions to prevent healthcare-associated infections.

From 2009 to 2011, the Saint Raphael Campus of Yale New Haven Hospitals intensive care unit rate of central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) went from among the highest in the state of Connecticut with 3.99 infections/1,000 central line catheter days during the first 15 months of the program to one of the lowest with 0.18 infections/1,000 central line catheter days during the last 18 months of the program. 

The success was attributed to several interventions, including the Institute for Healthcare Improvements Central Line Bundle, tools gained from the Connecticut Hospital Associations collaboration with the Johns Hopkins On the CUSP: Stop BSI program, as well as locally developed interventions. The work of the committee illustrated true collaboration across the hospital and sustained progress in reducing CLABSIs.

In addition to Saint Raphael Campus of Yale New Haven Hospital, three applications were awarded honorable mentions for the success demonstrated in their Partnership in Prevention award applications: Denver Health Medical Center, Mayo Clinic Florida in Jacksonville, Fla., and Shore Health System in Easton, Md.