Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI) Advisory Committee

Prevention Strategies Subcommittee

The Prevention Strategies Subcommittee evaluates current healthcare associated infection prevention strategies utilized by Arizona facilities. The subcommittee is also responsible for creating a toolkit for healthcare providers (including hospitals, long-term care facilities and assisted living facilities, dialysis centers, and ambulatory surgery centers) that will synthesize healthcare associated infection prevention, evidence, guidelines & best practices.

• Prevention Strategies Subcommittee Roster

Objectives of the Prevention Strategies subcommittee:

1. Evaluate current HAI prevention strategies utilized by Arizona facilities.
2. Create a toolkit that catalogs existing HAI prevention evidence on the basis of strength of evidence, cost of intervention, ease of implementation, and sustainability.
3. Supply ready to use information and educational resources to providers of care who may have restricted resources available.

Clostridium difficile Toolkit

Clostridium difficile

Clostridium difficile is one of the most frequent causes of healthcare associated diarrhea. The spore-forming bacteria produce toxins that cause gastrointestinal illness in individuals and pose a threat to hospital patients and nursing home residents.

Prolonged antibiotic use is viewed as the primary risk factor for developing, Clostridium difficile infections (CDI). Therefore, widespread prevention efforts are necessary to reduce the spread of C.difficile in various healthcare settings.

The Prevention Strategies Subcommittee decided to focus its prevention efforts on CDI due to the increased incidence and severity of the organism. The subcommittee has created a CDI Prevention Toolkit focusing on the areas of hand hygiene and contact precautions, surveillance for C.difficile, antibiotic treatment, environmental cleaning and education. The toolkit is designed to serve as a resource of tools to aid in issues associated with the surveillance, prevention and treatment of C.difficile infections.

Please recognize that each component of the toolkit will be field tested in the appropriate setting. Feedback from the testing will help make improvements to the toolkit. After field testing the components of the toolkit, please complete the toolkit evaluation.

• Surveillance of Clostridium difficile
  The Surveillance protocol and worksheets are designed to aid healthcare staff in the proper identification and classification of Community or Healthcare associated C.difficile infections. The tool will also provide information on data collection, classification, and surveillance for outbreaks.
  • C. difficile Infection Surveillance Protocol
  • C. difficile Surveillance Worksheet
  • C. difficile Surveillance Algorithm
• Hand Hygiene & Contact Precautions Specific to Clostridium difficile
  This component of the toolkit focuses on evidence based and best practices related to contact precautions and hand hygiene recommendations in specific healthcare settings.
  • Contact precautions to prevent C. difficile in various settings
• Environmental Cleaning of Clostridium difficile
  The environmental cleaning section of the toolkit provides evidence based tools along with strength of evidence for each intervention recommended to remove C.difficle spores from the environment.
  • Environmental Cleaning Toolkit
• Antibiotic Stewardship & Treatment of Clostridium difficile
  This component of the toolkit is designed to assist healthcare staff in determining the appropriate antibiotic treatment regimen for a patient with a C.difficile infection based on severity of illness.
  • Management of Clostridium difficile
• Staff Education on Clostridium difficile
  The education component of the toolkit includes developed training slide sets created specifically for clinical and non-clinical healthcare providers on Clostridium difficile infections. Each slide set is accompanied by a post-test to evaluate the information gathered from the presentations. Along with the education component, the subcommittee developed a C.difficile poster to be displayed within healthcare facilities.
  • Presentation: Q&A Clostridium difficile for Healthcare Providers
  • Post Test: Clostridium difficile for Healthcare Providers
  • Presentation: Q&A Clostridium difficile for Non-Clinical Healthcare Workers
  • Post Test: Clostridium difficile for Non-Clinical Healthcare Workers
  • Stop the Spread: Clostridium difficile Poster
• Public Education on Clostridium difficile
  This pamphlet on C.difficile was developed to provide information to the general public on C.diff, how to manage C.diff and to avoid spread of C.diff to others.
  • Clostridium difficile pamphlet: General Printing | Professional Printing
• Document disclaimer for Clostridium difficile Toolkit