APIC Invited to Join National Campaign to Save 100,000 Lives Through Healthcare Improvement

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) has been invited to participate as a scientific partner with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) on its 100,000 Lives campaign. The campaign aims to save 100,000 lives by implementing proven healthcare improvement techniques, such as infection prevention and control measures, within hospitals nationwide.

It is an honor to be included in this unprecedented campaign, and to join other distinguished healthcare organizations as scientific partners committed to implement changes in healthcare to improve patient safety, states Sue Sebazco, APIC president.

Healthcare facilities that participate in the 100,000 Lives campaign commit to implement some or all of six quality improvement changes. These include: deployment of rapid response teams; delivering reliable, evidence-based care for acute myocardial infarction; preventing adverse drug events, central line infections, surgical site infections, and ventilator-associated pneumonia.  Whether a hospital chooses to apply all, or some, of the recommended interventions, their results will be routinely tracked and measured, and will serve as a regular barometer for the campaigns progress.

We are organizing a world-class campaign to elect quality, said Dr. Donald Berwick, president and CEO of IHI. The healthcare organizations that join this campaign are not only demonstrating their commitment to quality, but also their determination to put life-saving improvement techniques into action.

Professionals in infection prevention and control are devoted to ensuring evidence based processes are in place to prevent the incidence of healthcare-associated infections (HAI). As infection prevention and control professionals who also serve as patient safety advocates, we support the IHIs 100,000 Lives initiative to ensure that evidence based processes to prevent and control infection are in place in the nations healthcare institutions, states Sebazco.

APIC is a multi-disciplinary voluntary international health organization with more than 10,000 members whose primary responsibility is infection prevention and control and epidemiology. APICs mission is to improve health and promote patient and employee safety by reducing risks of infection and other adverse outcomes. APIC advances this goal through education, research, collaboration, practice and credentialing.

Source: APIC