CDC launches new website for preventing infections in long term care

Categories: Healthcare-associated infections, Long Term Care (LTC)

January 23rd, 2014 9:08 am ET - CDC's Safe Healthcare Blog

Nimalie Stone, MD

Author: Nimalie Stone, MD
Medical Epidemiologist
CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion

The past few years have brought heightened awareness of the important role of infection prevention programs and activities in long-term care settings, including nursing homes and assisted living. Navigating all the information available on infection prevention in healthcare facilities can be overwhelming, and it can be particularly difficult to locate available resources that are specific to long-term care settings. To address this need, my CDC colleagues and I have worked to redesign and expand our web-based tools and resources for this important healthcare setting.

Today, we are excited to unveil CDC’s Infection prevention website for long-term care facilities! This site organizes existing infection prevention guidance and resources into sections for clinical staff, infection prevention coordinators, and residents. Facilities can also directly access the new infection tracking system for long-term care facilities in CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network, and the innovative infection prevention tools and resources developed as part of the partnership between CDC and the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes Campaign (AE)

. AE is a well-established quality improvement campaign, supported by national nursing home partners. The partnership between CDC and AE grew tremendously through our joint effort to develop and launch the Infection goal to prevent C. difficile infections in nursing home residents. By cross-promoting the AE infection resources on the CDC website, we hope to bring a new audience to the AE campaign while also exposing the campaign’s participants to even more CDC tools to support their local infection prevention activities.

While this new face on our website is another step forward in promoting infection prevention in long-term care, we know there are many resource needs we still have to meet. We look forward to expanding the information and materials available on this website as CDC and our partners continue to support progress in preventing infections in long-term care facilities. Together we must ensure that we protect this vulnerable population.