Central line-associated infections as defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Hospital-acquired condition versus standard infection control surveillance: why hospital compare seems conflicted.

Objective: To evaluate the concordance of case-finding methods for central line-associated infection as defined by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital-acquired condition (HAC) compared with traditional infection control (IC) methods.

Setting: One tertiary care and 2 community hospitals in North Carolina.

Patients: Adult and pediatric hospitalized patients determined to have central line infection by either case-finding method.

Observing and improving hand hygiene compliance: implementation and refinement of an electronic-assisted direct-observer hand hygiene audit program.

We implemented a direct-observer hand hygiene audit program that used trained observers, wireless data entry devices, and an intranet portal. We improved the reliability and utility of the data by standardizing audit processes, regularly retraining auditors, developing an audit guidance tool, and reporting weighted composite hand hygiene compliance scores.

"What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over": epidemiology and risk factors for bloodstream infections following cardiac catheterization.

No standard definition exists for surveillance and characterization of the epidemiology of bloodstream infections (BSIs) after cardiac catheterization (CC) procedures. We proposed a novel case definition and determined the epidemiology and risk factors of BSIs after CC procedure using this new definition.