Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

14 INFECTION CONTROL Viewpoint: The US is more vulnerable to COVID-19 now than ever By Erica Carbajal A s it stands, the nation's healthcare infrastructure is not equipped to withstand routine bouts of COVID-19 surges, Megan Ranney, MD, wrote in a March 28 opinion piece published in The Washington Post. "After five surges, and with vaccines and treatments widely avail- able, it's human nature to want to believe the job is done," writes Dr. Ranney, an emergency medicine physician and academic dean at Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, R.I. "In reality, our healthcare system is in no better shape today than it was two years ago — and, in fact, it might be in worse condition." She points to burnt out healthcare workers exiting the field; a rise in violence against healthcare workers; sicker patients; and stalled federal funding for COVID-19 response measures as reasons why. Honing in on insufficient COVID-19 response funds — which have already led to the U.S. cutting back on antibody shipments and free vaccinations and tests for uninsured Americans — Dr. Ranney said, "We will not have adequate supplies of treatments or vac- cines, nor any surge capacity, if and when the next variant hits." Without significant investment in the nation's healthcare infra- structure, she warns these current issues will only worsen in the face of more surges. "Our healthcare infrastructure should be a concern of national security. We need supply chains that work; staffing that is ade- quate not just during times of calm but also during moments of crisis; data systems that allow us to identify the surges before they overwhelm us; and a public health environment that not just preserves beds for emergencies but also allows us to prevent and treat disease and injury before they become a disaster," Dr. Ranney said. n California physician sentenced for defrauding Medicare, repackaging & reusing catheters By Andrew Cass A California physician was sentenced to 93 months in prison April 28 after being convicted of a $12 mil- lion Medicare fraud scheme and reusing single-use catheters on patients. Donald Woo Lee, 55, MD, recruited Medicare beneficiaries to his clinics, where he falsely diagnosed them and pro- vided them medically unnecessary procedures, according to a Justice Department news release. Dr. Lee billed the unnecessary procedures to Medicare after upcoding them to receive higher reimbursements. He also repacked used, contaminated catheters to reuse on patients. Dr. Lee submitted about $12 million to Medicare for the vein ablation procedures he performed and received $4.5 million as a result, according to the news release. He was convicted in October 2019 on seven counts of healthcare fraud and one count of adulteration of a medical device. He pleaded guilty in March 2020 to one count of submitting false declarations in a bankruptcy proceeding. Dr. Lee was ordered to pay more than $4.5 million in resti- tution to Medicare. n Patients in contaminated hospital rooms face 27% higher C. diff risk By Erica Carbajal P atients admitted to a hospital room previously occu- pied by a patient infected with Clostridioides difficile had 27 percent increased odds of being diagnosed with an infection, according to findings from researchers at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University. The study, published Feb. 22 in the American Journal of Infection Control, involved all adult inpatients admit- ted to five U.S. acute care hospitals from July 2016 to December 2018. More than 2,000 C. diff infections were reported among nearly 219,000 hospital admissions during the study period. Researchers used a logistic regression to assess if staying in a contaminated room increased the risk of infec- tion among subsequent patients. A room was considered contaminated for each day it was occupied by an actively infectious patient and for 30 days aer. Findings showed patients admitted to a contaminated room had 27 percent increased odds of subsequently being diagnosed with C. diff if exposed within the past 90 days, and 40 percent increased odds if exposed within 365 days, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported. "is study adds further evidence that hospal environ- ments in patient rooms may contribute to risk for [C. diff infection]," researchers said. e CDC estimates the bacteria caused 223,900 cases in hospitalized patients and 12,800 deaths in 2017, the most recent estimate available. n

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