National Awards Program to Recognize Achievements in Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections

National Awards Program to Recognize Achievements in Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections--Applications due January 29


HHS recently announced an awards program to recognize critical care teams and healthcare institutions that achieve excellence and sustained improvement in preventing healthcare-associated infections, specifically, central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), two areas of focus for AHRQ patient safety research. The goal of this program is to motivate healthcare and public health communities to achieve wide-scale reduction of HAIs and progress toward their elimination. HHS has worked in partnership with the Critical Care Societies Collaborative to administer these awards at two levels in mid- 2011:


* The Outstanding Leadership Award will recognize systems of excellence that result in sustained success over at least 25 months in the prevention or elimination of CLABSI and/or VAP, as well as national leadership in sharing and disseminating information.
* The Sustained Improvement Award will recognize progress in implementing systems showing sustained and consistent reductions over a period of 18 to 24 months.

Applicants must be a unit, hospital, team, enterprise, or healthcare system of any size and in any geographic location that provides care for critically ill patients and has at least one team member who belongs to one of the CCSC member organizations. Select to learn more about the HHS awards program. Deadline for submitting applications is January 29.
National Awards Program to Recognize Achievements in Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections