Category: C. difficile

April 18, 2023 LAN Event – Using TAP Strategy for HAI Reduction: CAUTI, CLABSI, C. diff, MRSA

Prepared by IPRO HQIC

Join us for a webinar featuring subject matter experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to learn about a comprehensive strategy to reduce hospital acquired infections (HAI). The Targeted Assessment for Prevention (TAP) Strategy is a CDC-developed framework for quality improvement that uses data to drive interventions that will prevent healthcare-associated infections. The TAP strategy targets healthcare facilities and specific units within facilities that have a disproportionate burden of HAIs so that prevention efforts can be prioritized and implemented where they will have the greatest impact. Our speakers will discuss the latest updates in the strategy and tools, including adaptation for smaller facilities.

Joint HQIC Antibiotic Stewardship: Quick Wins for Improving Duration of Therapy – November 8, 2022

Prepared by IPRO HQIC

Antibiotic Stewardship (AS) remains a national priority aimed at optimizing antibiotic use to effectively treat infections, protect patients from harms caused by unnecessary use and combat antibiotic resistance. This event features national antibiotic use and duration of therapy (DOT) trending data, strategies to address AS challenges, examples of best practice to improve antibiotic discharge prescribing, and a hospital’s success with engaging leaders, providers and front-line staff in a hospital-wide initiative to improve DOT and outcomes.

HQIC Antibiotic Stewardship Workgroup- Clostridioides difficile Module

Prepared by IPRO QIN/QIO

Video interview with a nurse describing her own C.  difficile survival story. The story includes a first-person accounting of her yearlong hospitalization, the impact of antibiotic therapy, prevention of C. difficile and the long-term effects of this devastating antibiotic adverse event.

Implementing Antimicrobial Stewardship and C.difficile Prevention Toolkit

The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania
Quality Initiatives Department Health Care Associated
Infection Prevention Managers.

Antibiotics represent the greatest risk factor for the development of CDI. While appropriate for treatment of many infectious diseases, antibiotics are often overused and misused. Antibiotics disturb normal bowel flora and place the patient at risk of acquiring Clostridioides difficile colonization and/or infection. Antibiotic Stewardship Programs (ASP) have been shown to be an integral part of a CDI reduction program.

The purpose of this toolkit is help facilities incorporate evidence-based research into their practices and measure their effectiveness. Process and outcome measures will be collected and trended.

Laboratory Assessment – Targeted Assessment for Prevention (TAP) Facility Assessment Tool; Clostridium difficile Infection (CDI)

Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

The questions in this section are laboratory-specific and should be directed to the facility’s laboratory director or other staff that have knowledge of the
practices at the laboratory that performs the facility’s C. difficile testing.