Baltimore, MD (September 8, 2009) – Governor Martin O’Malley today announced receipt of a $1,258,613 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to enhance the prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HAI). HAIs are the most common adverse event encountered by hospitalized patients. 

“We are investing these recovery funds in people and programs that will protect patients from infection in the healthcare setting,” said Governor Martin O’Malley. “We’re putting our families’ health first by preventing illness, improving health care quality and saving health care dollars all at the same time.” 

“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has helped save jobs and save lives,” said Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, Chair of the Maryland Health Quality and Cost Council. “Governor O’Malley and I remain committed to improve public health for all Marylanders and we are proud to have such a strong partnership with the federal government to help us reach that goal.”

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's (DHMH) Infectious Disease and Environmental Health Administration (IDEHA), the Maryland Health Quality and Cost Council (MHQCC), and the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) will use the funding to build on Maryland's HAI initiatives. As a result, the MHCC will be able to strengthen data collection, reporting, and analysis activities begun in 2007 to meet the challenge of preventing healthcare-associated infections. The funding will help DHMH launch two prevention collaboratives with partners in the healthcare community to identify where and how infections might occur during healthcare delivery and to identify prevention measures.

“Healthcare associated infections are serious, costly and most importantly, preventable,” said John M. Colmers, DHMH Secretary. “With this award, the CDC has recognized Maryland’s well-established track record of fighting healthcare-associated infections and our commitment to prevention." 

Maryland has been a leader in collecting and publicly reporting information on healthcare quality measures.  The Maryland HAI initiative seeks to promote knowledgeable patient choices about health care providers, provide feedback to health care providers and policymakers to benchmark performance, and inform quality improvement initiatives. The State’s efforts are guided by a commitment to ensuring that care is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, equitable, integrated, and affordable.   

According to Rex Cowdry, M.D., MHCC Executive Director, this grant will enable Maryland to move more quickly to further the goal of reducing HAIs in Maryland.  “Substantial progress in data collection – and resulting improvement in patient care - has begun in Maryland as result of the work of the MHCC’s HAI Advisory Committee. This grant will enable the State to continue and expand its work with Maryland hospitals and other health care facilities to prevent and control infections and improve the quality of patient care.” 

As of July 1, 2008, all Maryland hospitals have enrolled in the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network and are using this system to collect data on certain infections in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) and are reporting that data to the Commission.  The MHCC is collecting data on active surveillance testing for MRSA in ICUs and data on healthcare worker influenza vaccination rates.  

Over the past decade, there has been increasing awareness of the significant costs associated with medical errors, both in terms of financial resources and, more importantly, in terms of human life and suffering. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published To Err is Human –Building a Safer Health System. This document launched the Patient Safety Movement in the United States and was a “Call to Action” for a national effort to make health care safe. This landmark publication put forth the idea that mandatory reporting for medical errors was essential to help health care professionals and organizations both identify and learn from these mistakes, with the ultimate goal of improved outcomes for patients. Healthcare-associated infections were identified in this IOM report as among the most pressing problems in the health care field.