2015 APHA Annual Meeting & Expo

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

336179
Healthy People 2020 Law and Health Policy Project: The Impact of Legal and Policy Strategies on Healthcare Associated Infection Rates


Tuesday, November 3, 2015 : 9:30 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.

Bernard Black, JD, MA, Law School, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
Marion Kainer, Tennessee Department of Health, not known, TN
Peter Pronovost, MD, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, MD
Audio (mp3) recording Recorded Presentation (mp4)
Laws and policies are important drivers of health outcomes. To show the value of law and policy as effective tools for improving health, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and CDC Foundation launched the Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) Law and Health Policy Project. This initiative will create 10-15 reports focused on specific HP2020 topic areas and identify laws and policies that have demonstrated impacts on health outcomes. 

This presentation will discuss progress in  reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAI), focusing on Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection (CLABSI) rates, and the role of law and policy interventions in those reductions.  The data for this project will come from the National Healthcare Safety Network and state and federal level HAI reports. The presentation will discuss the contribution of various sources of incentives for CLABSI reduction, including public reporting of hospital infection rates, NHSN reporting, benchmarking efforts by hospitals, oversight by the Joint Commission and state health agencies, financial incentives, and patient and provider education. A final focus will be on how legal and policy initiatives may impact other HAIs, including surgical site infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and ventilator-associated pneumonia, and implications from the success (incomplete, but meaningful) of CLABSI reduction efforts for progress on other HAIs.

Learning Areas:

Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines

Learning Objectives:
Evaluate role of law and policy as tools for improving health. Evaluate evidence-based legal and policy approaches from the HP2020 Law and Health Policy report being developed to prevent HAIs and CLABSI. Explain how legal and policy surveillance information can be used in conjunction with health surveillance data to create an evidence base for effective public health interventions. Describe practical information about the use of law and policy to address health factors related to HP2020, in this case, healthcare associated infections.

Keyword(s): Hospitals, Healthy People 2020

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Author of Healthy People 2020 Report
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4049.0: Using Law and Policy to Meet Healthy People 2020 Goals and Objectives