To do so, the GAO suggests in a report to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the HHS identify priorities among the almost 1,200 practices included in the 13 healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Over 500 of these practices are strongly recommended. While the CDC and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality have conducted activities to promote implementation of recommended practices, these activities are not based on a clear prioritization of the practices, the GAO reports. Also, both the CDC and AHRQ have individually reviewed scientific evidence for certain HAI-related practices, but the efforts of the two agencies have not been coordinated.
In order to help reduce hospital HAIs, the GAO made the following recommendations the secretary of HHS:
- Identify priorities among CDC’s recommended practices and determine how to promote implementation of the prioritized practices, including whether to incorporate selected practices into CMS’s conditions of participation (COP) for hospitals.
- Establish greater consistency and compatibility of the data collected across HHS on HAIs to increase information available about HAIs, including reliable national estimates of the major types of HAIs.
“HHS has multiple methods to influence hospitals to take more aggressive action to control or prevent HAIs, including issuing guidelines with recommended practices, requiring hospitals to comply with certain standards, releasing data to expand information about the nature of the problem, and soon, using hospital payment methods to encourage the reduction of HAIs,” said Cynthia A. Bascetta, director of health care for the GAO, in a testimonial statement. “Prioritization of CDC’s many recommended practices can help guide their implementation, and better use of currently collected data on HAIs could help HHS—and hospitals themselves—monitor efforts to reduce HAIs.”
