by Brianna Crandall — August 7, 2015—The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s latest Vital Signs report includes mathematical modeling that projects increases in drug-resistant infections and Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) without immediate, nationwide improvements in infection control and antibiotic prescribing, including cleaning, disinfecting and sterilizing of equipment and rooms by health-care facilities and custodial professionals.
The promising news is that CDC modeling projects that a coordinated approach—that is, health-care facilities and health departments in an area working together—could prevent up to 70 percent of life-threatening carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infections over five years.
Additional estimates show that national infection control and antibiotic stewardship efforts led by federal agencies, health-care facilities, and public health departments could prevent 619,000 antibiotic-resistant and C. difficile infections and save 37,000 lives over five years.
Antibiotic-resistant germs, those that no longer respond to the drugs designed to kill them, cause more than 2 million illnesses and at least 23,000 deaths each year in the United States, according to CDC. C. difficile caused close to half a million illnesses in 2011, and an estimated 15,000 deaths a year are directly attributable to C. difficile infections.
The report recommends the following coordinated, two-part approach to turn this data into action that prevents illness and saves lives:
- Public health departments track and alert health care facilities to drug-resistant germ outbreaks in their area and the threat of germs coming from other facilities, and
- Health-care facilities work together and with public health authorities to implement shared infection control actions to stop the spread of antibiotic-resistant germs and C. difficile between facilities.
The Vital Signs report shows that C. difficile and drug-resistant bacteria—like CRE, MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), and resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa—spread inside of and between health-care facilities when appropriate infection control actions are not in place and patients transfer from one health-care facility to another for care.
These infections can lead to serious health complications, including sepsis or death, reminds CDC. Even facilities following recommended infection control and antibiotic use practices are at risk when they receive patients who carry these germs from other health-care facilities.
The “Making Health Care Safer” article is available on the CDC Vital Signs site.
