Who Should Be in Charge of What? (Components of a State-Level Healthcare-Associated Infections Prevention Effort)

Public Reporting of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) has expanded tremendously over the last several years, from the number of states now requiring at least on type of HAI measures to the number of different entities that require reporting. To date there are 28 states that have state-level public reporting HAI data legislation, compared to just four states in 2004. In addition to state-reporting, federal legislation has passed for reporting certain HAIs as they relate to pay-for-performance (incentive measures), thus creating new tasks for infection preventionsists (IPs) in addition to their other daily data collections. Thus, the major issue is how to drive results with heterogeneous and sometimes competing entities at different maturity levels, while still protecting the public's health and allowing IPs to do what they do best: educating and preventing infections.