Helping Frontline Staff Reduce Clostridiodies difficile (C diff) Infections with and Automated Report, presented by Sarah Prascius MPH, CIC, was great and had me thinking outside the box!
Key learnings:
- Partnering with infectious disease providers to assess for appropriateness of C diff testing was an effective strategy for Sarah's team to decrease hospital onset C diff infections.
- Implementing a nurse driven protocol for C diff stool collection empowers nursing to order testing based on identified algorithms and rule out C diff early in hospital admissions.
- Working with IT to create reports for Infection Prevention and frontline caregivers to easily identify patients with diarrhea, calendar days, and order/collection status of C diff labs.
How to apply these learnings:
- I will discuss with our infectious disease providers if reviewing C diff tests for appropriateness is feasible for their team and may be useful in our facility.
- I will review with my team if adding a nurse driven protocol is a viable option and discuss with nursing leadership.
- Creating a report to review patients with diarrhea and how many hospital days they have been admitted would greatly decrease hospital onset C diff cases in our facility as delays in testing has been identified. This will be discussed with my team to escalate to our IT partners.
Fantastic presentation and highly recommended if you're looking to decrease hospital onset C diff in your facility!
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