Safe Healthcare Blog

Hosted by CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. If you have questions or comments about healthcare safety topics, please contact CDC-INFO at https://wwwn.cdc.gov/dcs/ContactUs/Form.

Finding My Voice as a C. diff Patient

At the age of 31, I knew nothing of patient advocacy; having a voice for my own healthcare simply hadn’t crossed my mind. I’ve since learned that it is essential to include patient voices in the healthcare system. When I was prescribed a preventive antibiotic for a root canal I, like most Americans, thought nothing Read More >

October 27, 2021 by Christina Fuhrman

Antibiotic Resistance and Antibiotic Use (Stewardship), Healthcare-associated infections

Antibiotic Resistance and Antibiotic Use (Stewardship), C. difficile, Healthcare-associated Infections, Survivors

Patient Safety Representatives Unite to Implement Global Patient Safety Action Plan in the United States

Armando Nahum is a founding member of Patients for Patient Safety U.S. as well as co-founder and president of Safe Care Campaign, an organization dedicated to infection prevention.

Preventable harm in the healthcare system is an urgent public health challenge, internationally and in the United States. Globally, more people die now from medical errors or other breakdowns in the quality and safety of healthcare services than from lack of access to them. (1) Researchers estimate that medication errors, preventable infections, venous thromboembolism, falls, Read More >

October 7, 2021 by Armando Nahum, Patients for Patient Safety U.S., Founding Member

Healthcare-associated infections, Infection Control and Prevention, Patient Stories and Patient Safety

Action Plan, Implementation, patient safety

Sepsis Opportunities: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sepsis is the body’s extreme response to an infection. It is a life-threatening medical emergency. Sepsis happens when an infection you already have triggers a chain reaction throughout your body. Infections that lead to sepsis most often start in the lung, urinary tract, skin, or gastrointestinal tract. Without timely treatment, sepsis can rapidly lead to Read More >

September 13, 2021 by Runa Gokhale, MD, MPH, and Raymund Dantes, MD, MPH

Infection Control and Prevention, Sepsis

Care, Collaborative Research, COVID-19, Health Equity, Health Informatics, Preventing Infections, Sepsis, Survivors, Treatment, Vulnerable Populations

Protecting Patients Through Healthcare Resiliency

Denise Cardo, MD Director, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention In keeping with the catalyzing nature of past Decennial conferences, an international conference that occurs once every 10 years, to set the research agenda for the prevention of healthcare-associated infections Read More >

August 19, 2021 by CDC's Safe Healthcare Blog

Healthcare-associated infections

CDC Supports Microbiome Science to Advance Infection Prevention, Clinical Care, and Public Health

Controlling and containing emerging antibiotic-resistant threats and protecting people requires novel and innovative approaches. The human microbiome is a promising area of research for these efforts. Infectious disease experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Read More >

June 25, 2021 by Melia Haile, MPH, CHES; Alison Laufer Halpin, PhD; L. Clifford McDonald, MD; and Chris Elkins, PhD

Healthcare-associated infections