Schmaltz, S. P., Longo, B. A., & Williams, S. C.

The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. 2024 Jun 1;50(6):425-34.

2024

Hospital

Hospital (HAP)

Not applicable

No

To evaluate the relationship between Joint Commission accreditation and health care–associated infections (HAIs) in long-term care hospitals (LTCHs).

Observational Study

This observational study used Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) LTCH data for the period 2017 to June 2021. The standardized infection ratio (SIR) of three measures used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network were used as dependent variables in a random coefficient Poisson regression model (adjusting for CMS region, owner type, and bed size quartile): catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), Clostridioides difficile infections (CDIs), and central line–associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) for the periods 2017 to 2019 and July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021. Data from January 1 to June 30, 2020, were excluded due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also organized the participating hospitals in categories of being overall ranked as worse than, no different than, or better than the national benchmark.

Compared to non–Joint Commission–accredited LTCHs, accredited LTCHs had significantly better (lower) SIRs for CLABSI and CAUTI measures, although no differences were observed for CDI SIRs. There were no significant differences in year trends for any of the HAI measures. For each year of the study period, a greater proportion of Joint Commission–accredited LTCHs performed significantly better than the national benchmark for all three measures (p = 0.04 for CAUTI, p = 0.02 for CDI, p = 0.01 for CLABSI).

2017-2021

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38492986/

long term care hospital, infection control, HAIs

Positive