Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

6 INFECTION CONTROL UPMC creates hospital outbreak detection platform By Mariah Taylor P ittsburgh-based UPMC infection preventionists and University of Pittsburgh scientists have collaborated to create an infectious disease detection platform to reduce infections. e Enhanced Detection System for Healthcare-Associated Transmission system uses genomic sequencing to analyze infectious disease samples from patients. If two or more patients have near- idenical strains of an infection, the platform flags the results for the infection prevention team to find the commonality and halt transmission, according to an April 28 system news release shared with Becker's. Genomic sequencing enables physicians to know whether two patients have the same infection, especially among patients who don't have an obvious link, such as staying in the same inpatient unit. e results of the study were published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. e program was run between November 2021 and October 2023 at Pittsburgh-based UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. e platform was credited with preventing 62 infections and five deaths, while netting nearly $700,000 in savings from infection treatment costs. "is isn't theoretical — this happened in a real hospital with real patients," lead author Alexander Sundermann, DrPH, assistant professor of infectious diseases in Pitt's School of Medicine, said in the release. "And it could easily be scaled. e more hospitals implement this practice, the more everyone benefits, not just by stopping previously undetected outbreaks within the walls of the hospital, but by finding medical device- or medication-linked outbreaks sweeping the nation." If healthcare facilities across the nation adopt EDS-HAT, a nationwide outbreak system could be created, the release said. n What will replace HICPAC? 7 groups react By Mariah Taylor T he CDC ended its healthcare infection control practices advisory committee on May 8, and healthcare associations and groups are decrying the decision. Each year, hospitals incur $28.4 billion to $45 billion in direct medical costs due to hospital-associated infections. HAIs cause more than 72,000 deaths of hospitalized patients annually and up to 70% of HAIs are preventable when using evidence-based practices, according to the Emergency Care Research Institute. "I urge HHS to consider: what will replace the advisory committee to ensure healthcare providers access and implement up-to-date, evidence- based practices to stop the spread of HAIs?" Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, president and CEO of ECRI, said in a statement. What was HICPAC? e healthcare infection control practices advisory committee — or HICPAC — craed national standards on best strategies and practices for preventing and controlling antimicrobial resistance and infections in areas of healthcare such as home health, long-term care, outpatient clinics and hospitals, according to the CDC's website. Since it launched more than 30 years ago, the committee has made 540 recommendations — 90% of which were fully implemented, NBC News reported. e committee consisted of federal health leaders, including HHS and the CDC, as well as leaders from hospitals and associations. Dozens of professional organizations sent liaisons to the meeting, including representatives from patient advocates, nurses, long-term care associations, dialysis professionals, pediatric specialists and more, Karen Ravin, MD chief of the pediatric infection division at Nemours Children's Hospital and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society liaison to HICPAC, told Becker's. e committee also welcomed input from the public. "HICPAC was one of those behind-the-scenes groups most people never hear about, but that had an enormous impact on patient safety Leapfrog, APIC urge infection control investment By Paige Twenter In a May 28 message to health system CEOs, two national healthcare safety organizations compared cutting infection control jobs to "dismantling the fire department during wildfire season." The Leapfrog Group and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology said reports of staffing and resource reductions in infection prevention "jeopardize the very foundation of safe care." "The current healthcare landscape — marked by high levels of preventable patient harm, emerging infectious threats, workforce shortages and increasing complexity of care — demands that patient safety top the priority list of every health system CEO and board," the organizations said in a joint statement. They called on hospital CEOs, board members and policymakers to treat infection prevention as a strategic imperative, not just a regulatory obligation or budget line item. The groups also pointed to Leapfrog's spring 2025 Hospital Safety Grade data, which showed a continued decline in healthcare-associated infections — a trend they attributed to ongoing investment in infection prevention efforts. n

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