Environmental cleaning and disinfection: Sustaining changed practice and improving quality in the community hospital.

Objective: Short-term improvements in hospital room cleaning can readily be achieved but are difficult to maintain. This is particularly true for high-risk, "high-touch" surfaces. Therefore, we embarked on a process to sustain improvements in surface cleaning and disinfection to reduce hospital-acquired infection (HAI) rates.

Precipitous Fall in Common Respiratory Viral Infections During COVID-19.

In the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we were surprised to find that all other respiratory viral infections fell precipitously. The difference in respiratory viral infections during the 16-week period of our peak COVID-19 activity in 2020 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weeks 14-29) was significantly lower than during the same period in the previous 4 years (a total of 4 infections vs an average of 138 infections;  < .0001).

Successful reduction in catheter-associated urinary tract infections: focus on nurse-directed catheter removal.

Background: Despite using sterile technique for catheter insertion, closed drainage systems, and structured daily care plans, catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) regularly occur in acute care hospitals. We believe that meaningful reduction in CAUTI rates can only be achieved by reducing urinary catheter use.

Methods: We used an interventional study of a hospital-wide, multidisciplinary program to reduce urinary catheter use and CAUTIs on all patient care units in a 300-bed, community teaching hospital in Connecticut.