Healthcare-associated Infections: An Overview of Regulatory Requirements Applicable to Hospitals and Other Healthcare Facilities

Why Should You Attend:

The majority of U.S. states have responded to the occurrence of HAIs by implementing state-level HAI prevention and public reporting programs. Most states have also enacted legislation and promulgated administrative regulations placing mandates on hospitals and other healthcare facilities to report data on HAIs. In addition, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has implemented its HAI reporting program requiring reporting of HAI data by Medicare certified facilities.

This 90-minute online webinar will provide an overview of the regulatory landscape applicable to HAI data reporting and infection prevention. For those individuals not familiar with HAIs, the webinar will begin with an overview of the various infections that may be acquired in the healthcare setting and will provide a basic introductory overview of the regulatory landscape applicable to HAI public reporting and prevention. The course will provide a current and comprehensive review of U.S. state laws applicable to HAIs as well as a detailed discussion of federal CMS reporting requirements.

Areas Covered in the Webinar:

• Overview of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs)
• Description of the public health problem, morbidity and mortality associated with HAIs, and the financial impact
• Types of HAIs occurring in hospitals and other healthcare settings
• Hospitals and healthcare facilities affected by the requirements (hospitals, long-term care, renal dialysis clinics, ambulatory surgical centers, and other outpatient settings)
• Federal HAI initiatives and regulatory requirements
• Historical background of federal attention provided to the problem of HAIs
• HHS Action Plan to Prevent HAIs
• Federal funding and the requirement of state plans
• Guidance provided by the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC)
• CMS Reporting requirements
• Partnership for Patients
• Overview of state-level HAI public reporting and prevention programs
• State HAI public reporting laws
• Prevention initiatives in those states without HAI laws
• Common elements of HAI state programs and applicable legal/regulatory requirements
• Prevention collaboratives and partnership efforts
• The goal of accurate data: state and federal efforts aimed at validation of HAI publicly reported data

Who will Benefit:

This training will benefit hospitals, long-term care facilities, renal dialysis centers, ambulatory surgical centers, and other outpatient settings. The following personnel should attend this training:

• C-level executives (CEO, CFOs)
• Infection preventionists
• Quality professionals
• Physicians (particularly infectious diseases physicians)
• Nurses working in the infection prevention and control field
• Pharmacists
• Epidemiologists
• Medical laboratory technicians
• Microbiologists
• Hospital/ healthcare compliance officers
• Healthcare counsel/lawyers
• Risk managers

Instructor Profile:

Dr. Julie Reagan, PhD, JD, MPH, a healthcare law and consulting professional, focuses predominantly on healthcare-associated infection (HAI) issues. She serves on several state and national HAI advisory committees, and was also a member of an expert working group that advised the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the development of a HAI Policy Toolkit presenting state policy options to prevent and eliminate HAIs.

She has been licensed to practice law since 1993, primarily working as a government health law attorney. Most recently, she served as Deputy General Counsel at the New Mexico Department of Health. In addition to her law degree, she holds a masters and PhD in public health. Her 2010 published dissertation, The Movement Toward Patient Safety: State Action Related to Reporting and Disclosure of Healthcare-Associated Infections, presents a comparative analysis of state reporting and public disclosure laws and activity among U.S. states and territories. Julie Reagan is also a public health researcher and has been published numerous times in peer reviewed journals on issues related to HAIs.

Topic Background:

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are infections acquired by patients while they are receiving medical care for some other condition. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1 out of every 20 hospitalized patients in the U.S. will contract a HAI. It is estimated that 1.7 million HAIs occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in approximately 99,000 deaths per year. HAIs have been recognized as an important public health issue due to the associated morbidity, mortality, and large financial costs.

The majority of U.S. states have responded to the occurrence of HAIs by implementing state-level HAI prevention and public reporting programs. As a result of these state and federal activities, hospitals and other healthcare facilities are now faced with increasing regulatory duties relating to HAI data reporting and infection prevention.

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