Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) — especially infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) — pose a serious global health care threat. MDROs most commonly are associated via horizontal transmission (i.e., caregiver-to-patient, environment-to-patient, or patient-to-patient) in the health care setting. They cause serious, difficult to treat infections that are often related to substantial morbidity, mortality, and excess cost.
There is an urgent need for better strategies to prevent transmission and infection caused by HAIs. The critical need for health care institutions to reduce infections through compliance with basic prevention measures has been recognized at many levels, including The Joint Commission’s recent decision to add prevention of healthcare-associated infections as a National Patient Safety Goal and publication of a hand hygiene guide by the World Health Organization.
Many hospitals in both the United States and Europe have taken aggressive steps to reduce HAIs. Programs that have been successful in reducing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE), for example, have made reduction in infection rates a strategic imperative and generally implemented a combination of interventions, such as hand hygiene, active surveillance cultures, contact precautions, and robust decontamination rather than relying on a single approach.
