Awareness of healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) has grown significantly over the last several years and for good reasons. For one, there’s the cost: according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HAIs are estimated to add $28-45 billion to annual U.S. healthcare costs.
There’s also their reach, particularly with the senior population, which is among the most vulnerable. An estimated 1.5 million infections occur annually in long-term care facilities, resulting in 350,000 to 400,000 deaths, states The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), which focuses on patient safety, implementation science, competencies and certification, advocacy, and data standardization.
Among the most common problems are urinary tract, respiratory, and skin and soft tissue infections, and for residents these infections can lead to adverse clinical outcomes, including high rates of morbidity and mortality, rehospitalization, prolonged hospital stay, and increased healthcare expenses.
The fact that many long-term care residents are prone to transfer between different locations or care levels, including acute care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation units, home care, outpatient care, and other specialty clinics, compounds the problem.
Facilities have stepped up with increased efforts to enforce standardized procedures, including staff hand washing protocols, and most have developed infection prevention and control programs. APIC also recently published the “Infection Preventionist’s Guide to Long-Term Care,” aimed at helping long-term care facilities create and implement comprehensive infection prevention programs.
Items such as the call button, bed frame, and over-the-bed table have been known to harbor pathogenic microorganisms that survive for extended periods of time, APIC reports. Efforts, such as cleaning, disinfecting, and storing equipment and supplies, become an important tool in preventing the transmission of potential pathogens within a long-term care facility.
These prevention and control programs will need to evolve to keep up with the ongoing changes in healthcare delivery, authors Ana Montoya and Lona Mody note in their article, “Common infections in nursing homes: a review of current issues and challenges.”
Among their ideas are patient-oriented research on strategies to enhance hand hygiene compliance, reducing transmission of antimicrobial-resistant organisms, and the development of infection prevention practices for nursing as well as other non-nursing direct care staff.
The healthcare industry-at-large also continues to discuss and test other HAI-control measures, including copper-infused surfaces and linens, in an effort to bring more evidence-based design knowledge to this discussion.
What design ideas are you utilizing to reduce HAIs in long-term living environments? What do you think is the next “best” step in this fight?
