Dive Brief:
- Carolinas HealthCare System, with locations in North and South Carolina, has implemented new protocols in an effort to halt the spread of the antibiotic-resistant "superbug" carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). The bug has killed two people and sickened at least a dozen others in the region during the past several months.
- At Carolinas HealthCare System, three people have suffered hospital-acquired CRE and 15 patients have come in already infected with the superbug.
- The CDC has warned that CRE is an urgent health threat that has been reported in all but three states, and Carolinas HealthCare is taking heed with its several new precautions.
Dive Insight:
The health system is smart to take precautions, not just to avoid the risks to patients and healthcare providers, or to avoid the scrutiny that would come with continued spread, but to avoid the financial impacts of CRE now that Medicare and Medicaid are no longer reimbursing for the additional costs of treating some hospital-acquired infections.
Here's what Carolinas HealthCare System is doing to slow the spread of CRE:
- It is now screening patients from populations with a higher likelihood of CRE infection, such as those from long-term care facilities or with long-term use of devices such as ventilators and urinary catheters.
- Patients identified to have CRE are isolated from non-infected patients.
- CRE patients are provided with a separate nursing staff from those caring for non-infected patients.
- Care providers treating CRE patients are required to wear gowns and gloves that they must discard before leaving the patient's room.
- After the release of CRE patients, the hospital takes extra effort to decontaminate their rooms, including through the use of devices that utilize ultraviolet light to kill bacteria.
- The hospital has changed its procedures for cleaning endoscopes like those tied to CRE outbreaks at UCLA and elsewhere.