Overview:

In the US, nearly half a million people each year suffer symptoms from Clostridium difficile (C. dif) infections. This represents an increase of over six times previous estimates. The bacteria can cause extreme diarrhea, dehydration, inflammation of the color and even death. In a hospital, C. dif can contaminate virtually every surface. Many healthy patients who go into the hospital for elective surgery have contracted C. dif and died. Studies confirm that the more bacteria found on surfaces touched by doctors and nurses, the higher the risk these bacteria will cause infection in patients.

Solutions include promoting proper cleaning of surfaces with bleach, hospitals laundering scrubs for their staff, encouraging doctors to change their lab coats more often and requiring caregivers to wear two layers of gloves.

Participating hospitals will reduce their baseline rate of patients with a discharge diagnosis of C. dificile by a minimum of 30%. . Individual improvement goals will be determined by each facility and may vary.

Hospitals will submit data on a quarterly basis for initiatives. When possible, hospitals will provide historical data from 2008. Improvement will be determined by a trend line. The slope of the line from the baseline until the end of the data collection period will be used to determine if the improvement goal was successfully obtained.

Data will be supplied by hospital using selected ICD-9 codes obtained from the hospitals information system.

Baseline:
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) diagnosis for 2003 61/100,000 population.
Canada C-difficile rate for 2008 0.39 per 1,000 patient days