Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) www.whitehouse.senate.gov has introduced legislation titled the “Patient Safety Improvement Act of 2016” (S.2467) www.congress.gov to combat Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) and to promote stewardship of antibiotics.
The legislation would establish a grant program to support collaborative efforts between healthcare and stakeholders similar to Rhode Island’s ICU Collaborative to design and implement strategies for the prevention, control, and reporting of HAIs.
In addition, the proposed legislation has a provision for a CDC grant program to support state-based collaborative efforts to implement evidence-based regional approaches to infection prevention, control, and reporting.
Priority would be given to applicants to collaborate with multiple stakeholders across a region or state. The state plans must focus on collaboration across acute and ambulatory care settings and be led by an infectious-disease trained physician or pharmacist with expertise in infectious diseases.
The bill would improve data reliability and surveillance since a data collection pilot program in collaboration with CDC would use stakeholders to identify best practices and approaches for the collection and reporting of data on HAIs.
AHRQ www.ahrq.gov would then conduct a pilot program to test the best practices and approaches for reporting HAIs to National Healthcare Safety Network www.cdc.gov/nhsn by select long-term care, ambulatory surgical centers, and dialysis facilities. AHRQ would submit a report to Congress and HHS www.hhs.gov on the lessons learned in the pilot programs and recommended surveillance methods applicable to each care setting.
Other improvements included in the bill would provide for continuing education on infection control and patient safety, engage hospital leadership in patient safety, and goals are to improve the “Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005”.