Kimberly-Clark Health Care Recognizes Champions in Fight Against HAIs

Kimberly-Clark Health Care today announced the recipients of the HAI WATCHDOG* Awards program, created to recognize the efforts of dedicated healthcare professionals working together to prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). The awards program, an initiative of the HAI WATCHDOG* Community, facilitates the sharing of best practices among clinicians, and will recognize four participating facilities with educational grants.

"We are so pleased by the quality of the awards submissions received during our inaugural year of the program," says Joanne Bauer, president of Kimberly-Clark Health Care. "We look forward to continuing the sharing of best practices through the community and the 2011 HAI WATCHDOG* Awards entries."

"I was honored to judge the entries submitted by healthcare facilities from around the country," says William Jarvis, MD, former director of the Office of Extramural Research at the CDCs National Center for Infectious Diseases and president of Jason and Jarvis Associates, LLC. "It is my hope that those who read the entries learn from the innovative HAI prevention and reduction strategies and are inspired to share their own successful programs for others to learn from."

The 2011 HAI WATCHDOG* Awards will be accepting submissions beginning summer 2011.

2010 Educational Grant Award Recipients

Programs with measureable results were judged by a panel of infection prevention healthcare professionals and are listed below under the "Panel Judged Entries." Education and awareness programs with non-measurable results were judged by online public voting of fellow healthcare professionals and are listed below under the "Clinicians Choice" category.

The entries awarded an educational grant address issues including ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), surgical site infection (SSI), central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and hand hygiene compliance. Kimberly-Clark Health Care announces the following first place recipients of the 2010 HAI WATCHDOG* Awards in four categories, along with the honorable mentions.

Panel Judged Entries

Fewer than 300 beds:

1st Place: St. Tammany Parish Hospital, Covington, La. The "Bug Club" was formed to create a collaborative approach to implement best practices across five local hospitals to improve coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgical site infections. Over a series of meetings, best practices were developed and provided to the cardiovascular surgeons, along with supporting scientific evidence. The program was a success, with all five hospitals experiencing at least a 70 percent reduction in the incidence of CABG surgical site infections over two years.

More than 300 beds:

1st Place: Cabell Huntington Hospital, Huntington, W. Va. With the support of department leaders, Cabell Huntington developed an education plan themed, "Infection Inspection," that empowered the healthcare team to prevent CLABSI and VAP and made everyone accountable for achieving the goals. The program focused on education and reinforcing current protocols and procedures with frontline personnel in the Adult Medical ICU, Surgical ICU and Burn ICU. Among the many positive results, one of the most notable included the Adult ICU being central line infection free for six months out of the first seven months measured.

Healthcare System:

1st Place: Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta   The multi-year program, "Sustained Bloodstream Infection Improvement: Its a marathon, not a sprint," used evidence-based guidelines as the foundation to reduce CLABSI and to improve hand hygiene compliance. Program tools included a "FOAM UP" campaign, bundle monitoring tools and "Days Since Last Infection" communications. The pediatric and technology dependent intensive care units went 319 and 384 days, respectively, without a CLABSI.

Clinicians Choice

1st Place: Memorial Healthcare System, Chattanooga, Tenn. The hospital system implemented, "It Aint No Jive, Hand Hygiene Saves Lives Hands Up," a month-long hand hygiene campaign based on a "Happy Days" theme. A poster contest was unveiled and all entries were displayed in a common area where the staff voted on the best poster. The "Hands Up for Hand Hygiene" concept was also introduced as a non-threatening way to indicate when non-compliance had been witnessed.

Honorable Mentions

Cape Coral Hospital, Cape Coral, Fla. "Zapping VAP"

East Tennessee Childrens Hospital, Knoxville, Tenn. "Prevention of Hospital-Acquired Central Line Maintenance Bundles"

Chapel Hill Surgical Center, Chapel Hill, N.C. "The Zone Model for Hand Hygiene"

WakeMed Health & Hospitals, eastern N.C. "Environmental Services TEAM Together Eliminating All Microbes