Prevention is possible, the report explains, if hospitals improve how they control infections and a system is set up that helps hospitals act cooperatively to send alerts when infections crop up.
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So far, “independent, institution-based efforts to prevent transmission have been inadequate”, the researchers wrote in the study, published this week in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “But the modelling shows that communication and sharing of information among facilities is much more effective than the standard approach of hospitals and nursing facilities acting independently to stop spread of resistant bacteria”.
That’s the warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Without immediate, nationwide improvements in infection control and antibiotic prescribing, there will be increases in drug-resistant infections and Clostridium difficile, according to new mathematical modeling from CDC.
CDC’s plan would make the relationships between U.S. healthcare facilities like the ones in Europe.
“Antibiotic-resistant infections in health care settings are a growing threat in the United States, killing thousands and thousands of people each year”.
“Without those investments, we’ll continue to struggle, and patients will continue to get infections that could have been prevented…It’s up to Congress to support the resources needed to protect Americans.” More personnel would collect, study, and distribute data.
The problem of patients carrying infections between hospitals and nursing homes is well-known, and stubborn to solve.
“Resources are not where they need to be in every facility”, Dr. John Jernigan, the lead author of the CDC report, told me by phone. However, they hardly communicate with each other when patients are transferred who might be infected with the antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
A sustained national effort could prevent over a half million infections and save 37,000 lives during the same five year period. Illinois, for instance, maintains a registry of patients who have been diagnosed with CRE, one category of superbug; facilities can check their new patients against it, to know whether to whomp up precautions.
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The agency discovered that using this approach in small health care networks could reduce superbug infections by almost three-fourths in 5 years. South Dakota talks to neighbor states to check patient traffic across its borders.
