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Overview

ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø provides technical expertise and funding to HAI/AR Programs in 64 state, local and territorial health departments.

HAI/AR Program goals are to:

• Prevent the emergence of and control the spread of HAIs and related AR threats.
• Advance the detection, response and containment of antimicrobial resistance (AR) within healthcare settings.
• Promote antibiotic stewardship (AS), the practice of measuring and improving how providers prescribe antibiotics and patients use them.
• Protect patients and healthcare personnel.
• Improve healthcare safety and quality.

Program priorities

ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø-funded HAI/AR Programs conduct activities in five important areas. Examples include:

HAI/AR response and prevention

• Prevent the emergence and contain the spread of novel and targeted healthcare-related multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs).
• Respond to HAI outbreaks, including COVID-19.
• Assess healthcare facility infection prevention and control (IPC) practices, recommend solutions and address gaps.
• Use data-driven prevention strategies to improve IPC in healthcare settings.
• Improve response and prevention coordination between partners like labs, local health departments, licensing entities, healthcare facilities and academic institutions.

Antibiotic stewardship

• Help healthcare facilities launch and improve antibiotic stewardship.
• Track and report antibiotic use, including equity-related gaps.
• Coordinate stewardship with academic institutions, regulatory agencies, payors, healthcare systems, health departments and more.
• Improve stewardship in newer healthcare services, like telehealth.

Participation in and support of ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø's Antimicrobial Resistance Laboratory Network (AR Lab Network)

• Support comprehensive AR testing for HAIs as part of the AR Lab Network.
• Submit isolates (samples) of interest to AR Lab Network regional labs or ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø for testing as required.
• Train and guide laboratory personnel testing for AR among HAIs.

Infection prevention and control education and training

• Improve healthcare workers' knowledge of current IPC best practices and strategies through programs like Project Firstline.
• Coordinate IPC education for local health departments, academic institutions and healthcare organizations.
• Conduct, analyze and leverage healthcare facility needs assessments to provide training that addresses knowledge gaps.

Increased participation in and use of the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)

• Help healthcare facilities enroll and report into NHSN.
• Monitor and use data to inform public health efforts and interventions.
• Establish data use agreements with local health departments to enable their use of NHSN.
• Partner with academic institutions to validate studies of patient HAI data and improve prevention efforts with their findings.

Accomplishments

Since August 2019, recipient health departments used ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø funding to:

• Engage more than 15,000 healthcare workers in antibiotic stewardship.
• Train more than 100,000 healthcare workers in infection prevention and control (IPC).
• Conduct more than 65,000 IPC assessments in healthcare facilities.
• Support more than 120,000 outbreak responses in healthcare facilities.

Recipient spotlight

Kansas addresses staffing shortages with ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø support

Kansas' Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) HAI/AR Program has become a nationally recognized model for other health departments. Within the past few years, they have been able to:

• Grow from a team of three to 24 highly trained members.
• Conduct five times more IPC assessments in 2022 versus 2019.
• Foster stronger relationships with healthcare partners.
• Improve infection prevention in healthcare facilities.
• Increase staff HAI/AR specialization.
• Receive recognition from Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), Pew Charitable Trust, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (), and more.

Health departments like KDHE use ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø funding to better serve their communities, creating a safer healthcare system for all.

Policy

In 2009, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Steering Committee for the Prevention of Healthcare-Associated Infections published the . It is a roadmap for HAI prevention in acute care hospitals. The plan outlined expanded roles for health departments including coordinating, assisting, monitoring HAI/AR tracking, and prevention and response activities. ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø manages funding to health departments to help expand their contributions in these key areas as well as support implementation of the .

Funding sources

ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø administers HAI/AR Program funding through the ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø's Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Prevention and Control of Emerging Infectious Diseases Cooperative Agreement (ELC). The HAI/AR Program is one of the largest ELC Core Area Programs.

Between 2020 and 2022, ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø distributed more than $1 billion of COVID-19 supplemental appropriations to strengthen and equip health departments to prevent and fight infections like COVID-19 in healthcare facilities.

Funding recipients

Recipients include:

• All 50 state health departments.
• Six local health departments: Chicago, the District of Columbia, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City and Philadelphia.
• Eight U.S. territory or affiliate health departments: American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Palau, Puerto Rico, Republic of the Marshall Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

To learn more about a recipient health department's HAI/AR Program or to contact their HAI/AR Program Manager, visit their website by clicking the map below.

Contacts

[email protected]

Recipient resources