�Improvements in the prevention of catheter-related infections will be a prime focal point at the annual group discussion of the Association for Vascular Access (AVA) in Sept.
The conference comes on the eve of major changes in Medicare that testament eliminate payments to hospitals that run out to prevent certain hospital-acquired infections.
AVA will hold its 22nd Annual Scientific Meeting Sept. 11-14 in Savannah, Ga. AVA is the nation's leading organization dedicated to the emerging medical field of vascular access code.
Among group discussion presentations on preventing vascular catheter-related infections:
- Allan Morrison, Jr. M.D. will depict the vision of an infection control program that can amend clinical outcomes and reduction infection rates, high-risk antibiotic drug use, infirmary lengths of stay, and mortality. Dr. Morrison is Hospital Epidemiologist of the Inova Health System, Professor and Distinguished Senior Fellow at George Mason University's Graduate School of Public Policy, and Assistant Clinical Professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
- Another general session presentation will vexation the infection danger associated with semipermanent central vein catheters. The presenters, Stephen Ash, M.D., FACP and Deb Richardson, R.N., M.S., CNS, will review electric current data about the core of catheter locks or coatings on the infection rates. The speakers will also see the potential difference for these technologies to significantly scale down catheter-related infections in the future. Dr. Ash is Chairman and Director of Research at HemoCleanse and Ash Access Technology. Ms. Richardson heads Deb Richardson & Associates.
- A poster presentment by Kari Love R.N., B.S., testament show how use of a unsympathetic luer entree, split-septum device has eliminated catheter-related bloodstream infections for eight months in an adult medical-ICU population. The device replaced a positive-pressure mechanical valve. Ms. Love is a clinician at Jennie Edmundson Memorial Hospital in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
- An interactive panel and audience discussion, featuring vascular access and contagion control experts and highborn "Building a Better Bundle" will be aimed at devising a maximally efficient vascular access bundle victimization evidence-based products and practices.
"Our conference will spotlight the latest trends and changing landscape in vascular memory access," said AVA's CEO, Kathy McHugh, RN, BSN. "Infections that once were seen as inevitable are now seen as entirely preventable, and this is triggering enormous consequences for institutions with high infection rates. Those consequences include everything from dear lawsuits to lost reimbursements from payers, to patients shifting their patronage to hospitals that do the best job of prevention.
"Our conference's focus on these issues -- including exciting news around how to completely pass many infections -- comes at a crucial meter in the vascular approach field."
Vascular catheter-related infections ar the depicted object of increasing public attention on several fronts:
- Starting future month, the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will give up reimbursing hospitals for certain hospital-associated conditions. These conditions include vascular catheter-related infections. Many individual insurers are also cut reimbursements for these infections.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the rate of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), including vascular catheter-related infections, to be five per centum to 19 percent of all infirmary inpatient girdle. A total of 2 million patients per twelvemonth contract HAIs, and more than 90,000 of them die.
- To date, 24 states - including New York, Illinois, Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio -- have passed laws requiring that hospitals in their state let out their rate of HAIs. Several more states ar considering standardized action.
- Because they are now viewed as preventable, HAIs are expected to star to a massive wave of class-action suit lawsuits.
AVA CEO Kathy McHugh will also be presenting at the conference. Her lecture, "Business Strategies for Vascular Access Services," makes the financial sheath for healthcare institutions contracting with external vascular access services. The talk is designed to aid AVA members in marketing services to administrative leaders of their institutions as a strategy to eliminate CR-BSI and other complications.
In addition to its focus of vascular catheter-related infections, the AVA conference volition explore the increased use of ultrasonography guidance in vascular access code and will offer a certification program in echography usage.
This year's AVA conference will as well feature the first yearly Wise Foundation Gala, to raise monetary resource for the foundation. AVA launched the Wise Foundation for Vascular Access Education & Research in 2008, to avail fund vascular access educational activity and research.
An AVA webinar called "Building a Better Bundle," originally held Aug. 13, is archived on the AVA website and available for free. The webinar demonstrates that it is possible to acutely reduce or eliminate CRBSI by adding evidence-based practices and technologies to primal line bundles developed by clinical organizations such as IHI. A link to the webinar can be found on the home page at hTTP://www.avainfo.org.
About AVA
The Association for Vascular Access is a multidisciplinary organization composed of clinicians, educators, regulators and manufacturers from the field of vascular admission. AVA provides an chance for these individuals to improve practice and patient role outcomes by focusing on education, research, and new product innovations. AVA is the premier professional organization for those individuals in vascular access who ar leading the thoughts and actions of others in the playing field.
Association for Vascular Access
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