Healthcare-Associated infections continued to be a major (and largely preventable) threat to patient safety in Arizona during 2014 – although we had better results this year.  The 2014 National and State Healthcare Associated Infections Progress Report found significant reductions for nearly all infections in Arizona.

Arizona’s public health system takes a layered approach to preventing healthcare associated infections in our state.  It starts with our Licensing team – who regulates the healthcare institutions where the care happens.  Our Medical Facilities Licensing team and our Infection Prevention Program collaborate to ensure the safety of patients by jointly providing technical assistance and guidance to licensed healthcare facilities in response to identified infection control breaches.  The next layer is our network of public health disease detectives.  Our Healthcare-Associated Infections Program and the counties conduct epidemiologic investigations when we get reports of unsafe injection practices affecting multiple patients.

Our Advisory Committee generates guidance documents for healthcare facilities and provides best practices for infection control and injection safety like materials produced through the CDC’s One and Only Campaign and AZ’s Stakeholder-driven No Place Like Home initiative – which partners with the national Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs project.